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Turns out I was wrong. They are going to make me paddle down a river with crocodiles in it. Saltwater crocodiles. The kind that grow bigger than, well, a kayak. I discover this about 300 metres above the river on my incoming helicopter ride. That’s the Katherine River below me. When it’s done funnelling its way through nine famous gorges, which we’ve just flown over, it winds its way slowly downstream across the red dust and clay of the Australian outback, south-west of the township of Katherine.
“How come there are no saltwater crocs where we’re going?” I ask the helicopter pilot, waiting for a logical explanation. I’m sitting right beside him in his Robinson 44, so while his voice comes to me as a noise through my headset, his eyes stare right at me. “What do ya mean?” he asks.
“I just would’ve figured that a river so far north in the Northern Territory would have saltwater crocs in it.” I’m still looking at him. “There are saltwater crocs where you’re going, mate,” he says slowly, like he’s not sure whether I’m messing with him or just thick. “About a week ago, they pulled a four-metre saltie from a croc trap right where you’ll end up.” He continues on his merry way. “See there,” he’s pointing at a riverbed. “My neighbour’s dog was taken there by a saltie two weeks back. She reckons there wasn’t even a yelp. One minute it was there, next it was gone.”
But this far from the coast, the Katherine’s full of fresh water: “Doesn’t matter. They don’t mind the fresh water,” he says. But why on earth would an adventure company take people paddling above saltwater crocodiles? “It’s an adventure company, isn’t it?” he says with a chuckle. “Anyway, they should know how to avoid them.”
At this point in the conversation we spot a man in a kayak below us, waiting beside a tear-shaped sandbank in the river. The pilot banks hard left so that I temporarily lose my stomach as we come in low and fast and turn full-circle back at him.
My feet sink ankle-deep into coarse orange sand as I meet the bloke I pray knows where every last crocodile is on this stretch of the Katherine. The river’s a pretty sort of soft blue. It’s still enough, too, to create a mirror on the surface reflecting the lush trees that line both banks and look so out of place among the dusty plains we’ve just flown across. On a hot day like this one, it looks like the kind of river you’d leap right into if you didn’t know better.
“I wouldn’t,” guide Matt Leigh says casually. Leigh’s not the type to lecture or waste much breath on talking, but it’ll be these two words that guide me through the coming days – if Leigh says he wouldn’t, I don’t.
“There could be salties here,” he says, glancing around. “You never can tell. You’re better off soaking than swimming round here. Don’t swim where you can’t see the drop-off. You’d be right 99 times out of 100, but I take more than a hundred people here every year.”
Before I even so much as dip a paddle in the Katherine, I fire every croc question I’ve ever thought of, and then some, at Leigh. From that round of interrogation, let’s dispel a few myths about saltwater crocs before we go further – it’s only fair and, believe me, it helps.
They’re not always the killers we regard them as. An average saltie eats once a month, so they’re hardly out trawling for fresh meat like a lion, which eats as often as it can. And at five metres long, our kayaks are at least a metre longer than the crocs around here, so rather than seeing us as easy, squishy prey in plastic take-out trays, we’re simply the dominant species – they’ll hide until we pass by. Allegedly. Where there’s a greater chance of lurking crocs – in the deeper, darker sections of the Katherine – we’ll paddle in group formation.
But the crocs that inhabit this part of the river aren’t generally aggressive anyway – that’s why they’re here. They’re the non-dominant males who elected against fighting for women and food. Instead they tossed their towels into the ring and swam upriver to enjoy the quiet life, far from the testosterone of the coastal estuaries. There’s plenty more Leigh can tell you too, but it’s this image – of a river full of shy, retiring crocs seeking a bit of peace – that gives me the greatest comfort. So much so I’m finally able to concentrate on what’s all around me, rather than just under me.
Paperbarks grow right out over the water offering shade from the fierce afternoon sun. Blue-winged kookaburras – the kind that doesn’t laugh – fly between them as I pass by. Higher on the banks where gums grow, whistling kites and white-bellied sea eagles fly. Above them – high in the thermals – wedge-tailed eagles and black-breasted buzzards, so big they block out the sun when they pass in front of it, patrol the ground for food.
