In way deep...

I was reminded earlier this week of a crazy adventure that I had when I was teaching in Darwin.  As you know I’m not a fan of fishing.  Why you ask?   Well growing up I was given a choice by my parents – I could either go fishing with my father on Sunday mornings or go to church.  You guessed it - I chose fishing…a heathen by any other name! 

However, it wasn't long before I came to really dislike fishing.  I think it may have had something to do with the extraordinarily early mornings (we always left the house at 6:15 am sharp), or perhaps it was the biting cold of the early morning riverbank, lakeshore or dam that I was destined to be stuck on for the next four or five hours, possibly even the smell of fish guts or complete boredom that engulfed me as I waited patiently for a fish to take my bait.  All I know is that it was just too much to handle but what could I do…go to church?  I had no appetite for that either, so I was stuck between a rock and a hard place.

Jim-Jim Falls within Kakadu National Park
(Wet season)

Fast forward to 1984 when I was teaching at Nightcliff High School in Darwin.  A few of the teachers who were keen fisherman decided to organize a High School teachers fishing competition and so put out the invitation, citywide to the other five high schools looking for keen fishermen, trust me there were plenty.  Darwin, as you may know from my prior blogs is situated on the north central coast, and just a short flight to Indonesia but rather isolated from the rest of Australia.  The climate is tropical and hot all year round so perfect for an outdoorsman type lifestyle.

Darwin is gateway to Kakadu National Park, which is listed as a World Heritage site and renowned playground to an enormous variety of wildlife and spectacular natural beauty.  For those of you that love to fish this is home to the mighty Barramundi or “Barra” as they are lovingly referred to in this part of the world.  The Barra is a true sports fish (if there’s such a thing?), big, aggressive and hard to catch and so fishermen come from all over Australia and indeed the world to try and catch this mysterious fish.

A Barra caught on the
East Alligator River in Kakadu
National Park.

 As the weekend got nearer there was obviously a lot of peer pressure from the other guys on staff to take part.   I was dreading the prospect of a full weekend of fishing but eventually was convinced by Roscoe, Griffo and Bruno to accompany them on the adventure.   Did you notice that all of my mates’ names end in “o”?   A thing you should probably know about Australians is that they love to give everyone a nickname; hence Roscoe was a short form for Ian Ross, Griffo for Ian Griffiths and Bruno for Brendan Brannelly (okay that one was harder to pronounce).J

So on the designated Friday after school we packed up Roscoe’s Toyota 4runner and headed out to the East Alligator river which was about four hours drive south west of Darwin and deep within Kakadu National Park.  In addition to driving into the park we also had to procure permission from the local aboriginal tribe that governed that sector of the park to allow us to fish and camp on its property.  There were strict guidelines as I recall and fortunately the organizing committee had handled our permits in advance of the weekend.  

In all we had about 25 – 30 guys’ show up for the weekend, as we set up camp near the banks of the East Alligator River.  Strangely everyone camped either on the top of their trucks or inside their vehicles and never out in the open.

Early Saturday morning (after a night of drinking and storytelling into the wee hours), we set off in Roscoe’s 14’ aluminum fishing dinghy out along the East Alligator river toward a well known fishing spot that he knew which was quite a distance from the campsite, but in his words “where the Barra jumped into your boat there were so many of them”. 

As we travelled along the river we continually trolled for the elusive Barra, and occasionally had a bite or two but weren’t successful in hooking any.  That being said we saw lots of water buffalo (which had be introduced into Northern Australia late in 1890’s from South East Asia) to help with farming but had escaped and become wild and proliferated into enormous herds. 

East Alligator River and its miles of flood plains

As well, we also noted that the saltwater crocodile was also rather plentiful as we cruised along the river, with them often slithering into the murky water quite close to the boat.

Up until 1971 they had been hunted almost into extinction, but since becoming a protected species they had begun to flourish once again in this part of Australia.  The interesting twist in all of this is that with them not being hunted I believe they had also become unafraid of human interaction and in fact, perhaps began to see humans as part of their natural food chain which they sat at the top of.

A good sized “salty” could grow up to four meters in length and easily weigh a couple of tons; they are a surprisingly swift, territorial, aggressive and unpredictable and hence considered very dangerous.  A significant number of crocodile attacks during my time in Darwin evidenced this, many of them tourists and many of them fatal.

By early afternoon we were approximately 18 miles or 29 kilometers from our camp and deep on the flood plains of the broader East Alligator.  The sun was relentless, even with a hat and sunscreen I was burning to a crisp in the hot tropical sun, especially out on the river with the reflection off the water.  Can you say lobster red?

It happened all of a sudden…

Signs like this dot the river banks wherever you look
and rightly so, these guys are dangerous with a capital "D"

The tide turned and even with the boat and its motor pushed to its maximum couldn’t keep up to the change and speed of the tide.  We soon realized we were in deep, deep trouble and now stranded miles from our camp and without anyway of communicating our situation (yes, the days before mobile phones).   J      

It was late in the afternoon and we were stuck "high and dry" on the floodplain for the night.  Can you say “fresh meat?” Roscoe maneuvered the boat toward a large tree stump and we tied the boat to it.  At this point the river was less than 15 meters wide at both the main river and its direct tributary.

Soon after we glided to shore, we began gathering as much firewood as we could find, and I mean an enormous mound of wood and lite it to create the bonfire of bonfires as it was our only hope of not being taken by the crocs that night. 

We tried to sleep close to the fire, but in the tropics it’s already sweltering hot at night and especially coupled with the clouds of mosquitoes and sandflies and so it proved to be a most uncomfortable and restless night camped out by the bonfire.

They are huge, scary and almost
prehistoric looking

At one point in the night Bruno got up to check on the boat to ensure it was still tethered tightly to the stump and with his flashlight scanned the opposite bank. After the fifth set of eyes reflected back at him he turned the flashlight off and sat stoking the fire for the remainder of the night…

He woke us well before first light and said in an insistent and urgent voice that we needed to go right now as the tide was up.   It was only after we were safely motoring back toward camp in the main river that he told us of the hungry eyes stalking us the night before.

I must admit as he related the story to me I felt a cold chill run up my spine as I imagined a large salty attacking us during the night. 

We were squarely in his territory and in my mind really lucky not to have been attacked. We made our way directly back to camp, and I for one didn’t put in another fishing line for the remainder of the weekend.  

In fact, now that I think about it that was the last time I went fishing…period!