Patriot Realm

Up in the far north of Australia, at the pointy end, there are crocodiles. Little crocodiles, bigger crocodiles and bloody monster crocodiles, some reaching near thirty feet in length.  I have seen them at all these sizes, in their environment, from Red Island Point up near the pointy bit of the Cape, down to Cairns, and of course, they are further south too, but my area of interest in those days, long ago, was from the pointy bit of the Cape to just south of Cairns

.Once upon a time, long, long ago, PP worked for a government department, in a job that required PP to visit and remain in indigenous communities for one week, back to the office for one week, then live in another indigenous community for one week, continuously, for well over a decade.

The majority of the assigned communities were on Cape York Peninsula with occasional work on the Torres Strait islands.

The cycle went on for many, many years, of either fly in or drive in with all the gear, for the job.

The reason was to provide instruction to the community staff on operations and maintenance of water supply and sewerage systems within those communities, in an attempt to break the 3 year cycle of replacement, due to neglect.

Part of the role, required PP to take samples of water, from the systems, including the outlets of sewage treatment facilities, which were often, into a nearby creek or river.

Those nearby creeks and rivers in Cape York Peninsula, were, and remain, infested with salt water crocodiles.

Salt water crocodiles are the nasty one's which don't mind at all, dining on humans, or cattle, pigs, horses, anything at all, which may blunder into strike range, mostly, at river banks, or if the human or animal is stupid enough, in the water course.

Anyway, to take water samples, for example, at Lockhart River, there is Quintell Creek, where the community sewage system discharges, the water is dark, and still on the surface, and the creek runs through the scrub to Quintell Beach, about a two kilometer run, where it discharges into the sea.

PP needed to walk from the beach, up the creek to take the necessary water samples, keeping a watchful eye for those big lizards, this I was required to do, many times. 

There was a resident big lizard, and I was very wary, I must say, the locals would not come with me, but the job had to be done, and done it was.  I only needed to do this a few times, and all went well.

PP in action. You didn't know that about him, did you?! 

Where Quintell Creek flowed across the beach to the sea, it wasn't awfully deep, but more so wide, the locals would walk across Quintell Creek on the beach, with a number of mangy dogs around them, these dogs were the safety measure, the crocodile would take a dog and let the locals run for their lives to escape, I guess this method worked pretty well, as none of the locals were ever taken by a croc to my knowledge.

Down south a few miles from where Quintell Creek crossed the beach was the outlet of the Claudie River, the Claudie is chocka with crocs, little crocs, medium crocs and bloody monsters.  Further down to the south, is where Lockhart River enters the sea, also, chocka with crocs of all sizes and equally huge, sharks.

On Quintell Beach, there is the barge ramp, where supplies come in at least weekly, from Cairns via a ship, offloading to a barge, and the goods are then unloaded at the barge ramp from the barge. 

Around the barge ramp, there a large granite bombies sticking up out of the sea, the local kids swim in the shallow waters near the south side of the barge ramp, why, is beyond me, as the monster crocs swim from the Claudie River north up the coast and back, I have seen some huge crocs there, just off the barge ramp, I did a calculated measure of one, it was 24 feet from nose to tip of the tail, at the same time, about a dozen kids were swimming in their swimming spot, on the south side of the barge ramp.

The late great Steve Irwin " Crocodile Man "

I, and others who were observing the monster croc, shouted warnings to the kids about the croc coming in closer and closer, at first the kids ignored the warnings and kept happily splashing around, then, one of them must have sighted the croc not far away, oh dear me, what a scatter of kids happened, as they all rushed out of the sea to safety.  The locals told me, this particular croc had been living in the area for years, it's main haunt being the Claudie River.

To the north of Lockhart River, with a 4WD drive on a track through the rainforest, is a place called Portland Roads, a fishing trawler hangout.  Lives have been lost here, to large crocs, the place is also raided from time to time, by the drug squad for good reason, (trawlers - remote area - drugs - who would have thought it!) but that is another story.

An interesting link about Lockhart River.  https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lockhart_River,_Queensland

Travelling further north, there is the Jardine River, with a ferry crossing for vehicles.  The Jardine River is chocka block with crocs, again, some huge crocs, and lives have been lost here on quite a few occasions, mostly locals, who should have known better than to swim in this well known croc haunt.

I remember one incident, where a bloke from Injinoo, had a few beers under his belt, sitting one side of the river, when the ferry mechanism became jammed, the ferry was on the other side,he swam across the river to the ferry to try to sort it out, then he swam back.  Then the silly buggar, swam across again and was taken by a big croc.  The search for his body took three days, and they found him jammed up under tree roots on the river bank, not far away. This is what the crocs often do, they drown the victim by the 'death roll', and jam their body under some object for a later feed.

Link to a story about this incident.  https://www.upi.com/Archives/1993/12/25/Crocodile-mauls-and-drowns-man-in-Australias-far-north/5537756795600/

Up the Cape, at the pointy end, there is a local Aboriginal clan, calling themselves the Crocodile Clan, they believed they were 'protected' from attack, as they were kin, with the crocodiles there. A few of the clan, over the years, discovered otherwise, as the crocodiles seemed to have some difficulty in recognising their indigenous kin when they killed a couple of them.

Seisia, is located at what is often called Red Island Point, off the point, there is Red Island, with a couple of monstrous crocodiles, way back in the 90's when I was working up that way, I had seen this crocodile and others, the one basking on the beach at Red Island was estimated at that time, to be 24 feet long, and I believe it too, it was huge!

A little about Seisia.  https://www.capeyorkaustralia.com/seisia.html

Near, and to the west of Seisia, is Injinoo, with Cowal Creek adjacent, this creek is chokka with crocodiles, and the locals are of course, very wary, Cowal Creek goes a good way inland, and is crossed, to get to the Northern Peninsular water supply pumps on the Jardine River.

I was up there for a while, to do some assessment works on the water supply pumping station in readyness for upgrades.  Previous to my arrival by air, there was a decent amount of monsoonal rain, and Jardine River was flooded, as was Cowal Creek on the way there.

Anyway, four of us travelled in a 4WD, crossing the flooded Cowal Creek at known crossing, with water part of the way up the windscreen as we hit a deeper hole in the creek, but the white driver was well skilled, so it was no problem forging the stream, then through saturated ground driving on any rocky bits we could fine, finally, making it to about 500 metres from the water pumping station.

As the water pumping station was on the bank of the Jardine River, the lower section was flooded, however, the electrics were positioned well above any know flood level in an airconditioned building, accessed by a set of stairs from the concrete base of the structure.

No one was keen to walk through the waist deep water to the water pumping station, but the water was clear, so it was up to me of course, to take the gamble.  The other three kept watch for crocs as I waded over to the pump station, getting there safely, made all my measurements and photographs, checked the electrics inside the airconditioned building, all was well, so I then had to of course, wade back.

I am still here, so I guess I made it, but soon after I got back to the vehicles, we saw three big crocodiles swim close to the water pumping station I had waded away back from, only minutes earlier. Not good, and never again.

PP taught Steve everything he knew.... only joking. 

When up at the pointy bit of Cape York Peninsular, on another project, it was the dry season, and I was on site for about four or five weeks working with an engineer who was overseeing the installation of the sewerage systems in Bamaga.

The first weekend, the engineer asked me to go fishing with him in the Jacky Jacky inlet an inlet not far from the airport.  His boat was a small aluminium punt, about ten foot long.  So, anyway, we travelled to the boat ramp on the Jacky Jacky creek which has a very wide outlet to the sea.

We launched the punt, all the while with eyes peeled for crocodiles, as Jacky Jacky Creek was lousy with the big lizards.

Never, has PP been so nervous fishing in his life, I have survived huge seas, and a  sinking boat in the bay at Lockhart River (we successfully fixed the bilge pump, just in time, before the boat sank in the storm), but, there was no chance of survival had the punt sank, all it would take, was a large crocodile to have a go at it, and both of us would have been converted into crocodile poo.

We caught bloody nothing after a couple of hours, so returned, with PP vowing and making it quite clear to the engineer, NEVER again, I would do my fishing from the Seisia jetty if I wanted to go fishing, thank you very much.

A bit of information about the airport, which was a base in WWII:  https://www.ozatwar.com/airfields/higginsfield.htm

There is also the story of a crocodile attack at Jacky Jacky creek near the Higgins airfield, during WWII.  The army were camped not far from the creek, I guess, as guards for the Higgins airfield. 

Anyway, the soldiers went to the banks of the creek to do some drinking, as things progressed into the early evening, one of the soldiers was grabbed by a huge croc, by the legs, the other soldiers grabbed him and held on, but the soldier grabbed by the croc lost part of his legs.

I don't know if he survived or not, but the soldiers were not impressed, so they got a large chunk of meat, and inside of the chunk of meat, they placed a hand granade, tying the hand granade pin to the branch of a tree overhanging the creek, with strong wire, whilst tying the chunk of beef with a not so strong, rope, to the same tree branch.

Members of the 13th Garrison Battalion at Jacky Jacky in April 1943
From left to right:- Edwyn Rhys Gronow, Robert Hamilton Quick,
S. (?) Anderson, Robert Beveridge, Thomas Henry Wilson, (?) Alchen"

The soldiers pulled back away to a safe distance and waited.

After a few hours, the tree branch began to shake, as a huge crocodile grabbed the chunk of meat, and submerged.

Kaboom, went the granade and chunks of crocodile went into the air.  Another crocodile less, revenge was had.

A bit more on Higgins airfield.  https://www.ww2places.qld.gov.au/place?id=77

Now days, the croc population in the Cape, is out of control, thanks to the stupid Greens and Labor.  These idiots have no bloody idea, how bad it really is there, and you can safely bet, had these sort of croc numbers were in the Brisbane River, there would be a massive cull.

However, as it is now, it is  not unusual to see crocs walking across Mulgrave Road in Cairns, they come from Moody Creek in the suburb of Bungalow, not far from Cazalys social club.  They a have also been seen near the Edge Hill primary school, as a creek runs close by.  Of course, Townsville has had their fair share of crocs wandering across roads close to waterway also.

Well, until next time, have a great day and remember: life in the pointy end is no picnic. Unless you want to end up as the main course.