ALLIGATOR

We have fallen in love with Alligator Billabong. The place was absolutely teaming with life - within an hour of being on the water we had seen wild horses, Brolgas, Jabirus, wallabies and of course…….crocodiles! 

Wild Horses and some Brolgas

Just chillin'

Lunch on the go……..

It was not long before we started catching fish. Marty was on first with a nice barra. The archer fish were numerous, very aggressive and quite sizeable. Over the one and a half days we spent in this wonderful oasis we landed Barra, Toga, Archer fish and Long Tom. We lost loads more than we caught and all were caught on the dark side. There was a constant slightly cool wind/stiff breeze which, too our surprise, spun about 180 degrees after the sun went down and suddenly started pushing us away from the shallows. The delightfully cool wind kept us fly free during the day, mozzie free in the evening and unfortunately, kept the fly rods in their tubes!

Its been a while….

On another note: The crocodiles were numerous and visible, with a number well over the 3m mark out and about. All of the crocs that we saw were very active and moving around a lot. We trolled on the electric mostly, so we could really hear the sounds of billabong life - there was a lot of croc barking (yes it does sound like a dog woofing!) and there was a lot of thrashing about in the shallows. It was hard to tell what the crocs were thrashing about with - whether it was another croc or intended dinner we couldn’t always see but we could see the croc tails and backs. They also seemed to be going at the brolgas and other wading birds quite determinedly.

Spot the croc and 2 Brolgas keeping us company as we fished into the sunset

Usually the waders seem to wander the shallows with impunity but not last weekend!  Not long after watching some gorgeous wallabies drinking and eating at the waters edge, we saw a large croc swimming with what looked like a wallaby in its jaws. She headed back towards our camp, which made us happy - one less hungry croc in the vicinity!