Kununurra: Crocs & a Jabiru

Our first stop in Western Australia was Kununurra, just over the border.  We stayed at a caravan park right on Lake Kununurra which offered some lovely sunsets and wildlife spotting.   It didn’t take long to spot our first crocodile gliding by in the water. There was a platform nearby that the kids made use of.  I suppose it was a stage.  The boys all took turns pushing each other off of it.  TurboBug (2) even participated, though he’d often run up and touch one of his brothers, then just jump off by himself, pretending he’d been knocked off.  It was so hot in Kununurra that he spent much of his time in just his nappy. We enjoyed the sunset and watched the Jabiru who was resting nearby.  I only knew he was called a Jabiru because of our visit to Kakadu and the town of Jabiru.  We headed closer to the water to see if we could spot any crocs and had no trouble finding them.  These are all freshwater crocs.  They don’t view people as food but you still don’t want to reach out and pat them on the head.  🙂 Meanwhile the Jabiru headed on his way and I was happy to get a picture of him up on those long legs. We could see some people gathered near a bench by the lake and found them all gazing at this rather large freshie.  He had no teeth and was probably hoping for a handout.  He mostly stayed in the shallow water and every once in awhile would roll his head to one side and try to grab one of the small fish swimming around the water’s edge. The hill we could see is called the Sleeping Buddha, we were told that if you view it from the other side it looks more like an elephant head complete with trunk. The next night I wandered back down to the lake and the Jabiru was much closer to everyone.  He  kept looking in the water, I suppose for some food, while keeping one eye on the nearby croc.  I was so thrilled to see him up close!  I nearly could have reached out and touched him. The crocodile that was visiting that night definitely had teeth.  And scarring all over his head, presumably from fights with other crocs.  He was one of the larger ones in the lake. I know this is a blurry picture, but I so often forget to take pictures of where we are camped that I’m posting it anyway.  We love our string of lights though we don’t always get them out.  We were camped right next to the pool which was lovely because it was so stinking hot in Kununurra.  The heat was relentless and we made use of the pool multiple times a day. That’s LadyBug’s new purple camping chair, she had her birthday while we were in Kununurra, and so did SkeeterBug.  Post to come on that!