"The view on the way out to the drill every day. Beats the roads we drive on in Northern Sask. Beats em like Alec Baldwin's red-headed stepchild.... if he had said red-headed stepchild."
"The arch is on the left. I've got great footage of this on the camcorder. Still have to get a better photo though."
"This billabong was used for Crocodile Dundee. It's within the outer boundaries of Kakadu."
"The East Alligator River cuts between the sandstone cliffs."
When we flew over the river I saw my first crocodile. We were a couple hundred feet up and it still looked big. It dove under water after awhile and it was crazy how fast it could disappear. There’s a 4-5 m one that has been seen on a regular bank many times but I haven’t seen it yet. It was cool just to see one in the wild instead of a zoo (even though I plan on seeing at least one closer up in a zoo). Salties scare me more than wolves or bears. I’m a legitimate food source for them and they’re in all the water sources. Wolves will avoid you altogether (unless it’s a mangy lone wolf) and you can stand your ground against a black bear. A saltwater crocodile is invisible in any murky water and they’re so big they can take down anything that lives on land in Australia. They’ve even been seen to take down a water buffalo and they’re huge. I also find that locals have way more fear and respect for crocodiles than Canadians have for wolves, bears, cougars (the one with claws…ok maybe that doesn’t separate the definition enough….the ones that stalk you….nope that doesn’t get it done either….the ones that live in the wild…yeah that one might work) or gophers. The Northern Territory always sees at least a couple people get picked off by them every year. Pets get picked off way more often. They are the apex predator for the continent: Crocodiles 1, Dingoes 0.The fieldie here at Beatrice is a unique one. He looks like Mr. Bean, except with a mullet. He even mumbles when he talks with a deep voice…. it’s uncanny.
I just watched a commercial for a new reality TV show called RBT. You know what that stands for? Could it be Robot Battle Trainers? Nope. Rollerderby Babes of Tasmania? Wrong again. It actually stands for Random Breath Testing. That’s right, they have an entire show dedicated to police pulling people over for a breathalyzer test. Once again, Australia has amazed me.
The town that’s nearby is called Jabiru. It’s a mining town that supplies basic services for everyone working at Ranger as well as the tourists that need somewhere to stay. The most famous place to stay is a Holiday Inn that looks like a crocodile form the air.
"Not nearly as impressive at ground level."
We’re not staying at that hotel. Ours looks like a bunch of Chinese-style farmer hats set in a circle. 
"Aurora Resort. A hotel frozen in time, but they chose the wrong decade."
From the outside, the place looks like its got itself together. But once you step inside those doors, you soon realize that this place was built in the early 80s and hasn’t seen an update since. Almost no water comes out of the shower head (note: after 4 days this was fixed, woot!), several people have gotten bed bug bites because the sheets aren’t cleaned even after being in the room for weeks, the TV uses rabbit ears for reception and there’s no internet. It does, however, have air-conditioning (or air con), sweet sweet air-conditioning.
June 23rd
I had an awesome day today. Work was ok. Did quite a bit of hiking through the bush and managed to see some cool stuff.
I thought our day would take us longer so I told the chopper pilot to pick us up around 4pm. We ended up getting done closer to 2:30 and had to kill some time. I went on a small walkabout and stayed close to the LZ (landing zone, love using that terminology, just once I’d like to radio the pilot to tell him he’s got a ‘hot LZ’) that we cleared.
We ran out of water so the walkabout was also meant to try for a creek that might have been nearby. I found some stagnant water left over in a dried up creek. Stayed away from that stuff. I stood out in the dried up creek bed and listened to the various sounds around me. The flies were buzzing enough to drown out most noises at first but when they calmed down I started to hear the birds, frogs and hopping insects around me. It was serene and a pure moment of peace….then I heard a new noise. I turned around to see a snake no more than a few feet away and it was slithering toward me. I took a step back and as soon as I moved it darted in the opposite direction and did a half coil. We'd obviously surprised each other. I think it was waiting for me to go all Steve Irwin on it and try to grab its tail. Instead I took a couple more steps back and it quickly disappeared beneath the bent over grass.
"I managed to get a quick pick as it darted off."
Given the new wildlife sighting I looked up what snake it was as soon as I got back to the office. It’s one of two things. Brown Snake or Taipan. I looked at a lot of photos of Australian snakes and I still came to those two. Both make the top 10 deadliest snakes in the world. The brown sits around the bottom of the top 10 while the Taipan is always numero uno. So it was either a mildy life threatening encounter…. or a death defying moment of common sense. As in, “Hey, there’s a snake. Wait a second, aren’t all the snakes in Australia dangerous? No, they’re not all dangerous, idiot. Pfft…. but that one might be. Probably best to play it cool and slowly back away, yeah that seems like the right thing to do.” Whether it could have killed me or killed me 10 times over with one bite, either way, it was cool to see something like that and manage to keep it safe.
Oh yeah, when we were picked up by the chopper we noticed a creek that was a few hundred metres away. There was a big croc sunning himself on a bank. Kind of glad I didn't go looking for water in that direction.
Preview of next post.... "All the plants that hate you when you're walking in the outback."
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