Australia Day 10: Hartley's and Port Douglas
This morning we are picking up our rental car from Mini Car Rentals at 8:30 AM, which is when they open. So after eating breakfast Nate and Landon walk a few blocks over to pick up the car while Kailey and I go up to the room to grab a bag I had packed.
We plan to go to 4 mile beach up in Port Douglas so we bring sandals, beach towels, sunscreen, plus snacks and water. We won't be swimming since it takes forever for things to dry out here with the humidity and we are leaving tomorrow evening.
Our rental car is a MG 3, which is a small car, but it has plenty of room for us on a day trip. Our first stop of the day is going to be Hartley’s Crocodile Adventure which is along the way north towards Port Douglas.
Traffic is terrible heading into Cairns in the morning. Thankfully we are heading the other direction
You can see the Skyrail heading up the mountain that we went on the other day
For fuel they have Unleaded, Ultimate, and Diesel. The prices show 179.9 for unleaded, I'm hoping that's 1.79 9/10 per liter, not 179.90... guess we'll see when we fill up before turning in the car.
As we are driving along I try to remind Nate when we are turning across an intersection to turn into the correct lane as they drive on the left side of the road in Australia. Not saying that he doesn’t remember, he has driven on the left side before, but it’s an extra thing to remember in an area you don’t know.
There is a decent amount of road construction along the Captain Cook highway that takes us north. They keep filtering us onto the right side of the road, and then back to the left, so it is almost playing tricks on us, feeling weird going back and forth. The drive up to Hartley’s is around 45 minutes.
This is not a fresh accident, looks like it has been there for at least a day or two.
At the ticket counter I tell the lady that we would like to make sure we can get to the 11 AM croc feeding, so she gives us 10 AM tickets for the lagoon ride, which starts in 30 minutes.
We only have a little bit of time to explore before getting in line for our lagoon tour. The lagoon is to the right of where we enter and the rest of the park is to the left. We walk over to the area where the fresh water crocs are and then back to the lagoon boat dock. On the way to the boat dock we see they have a young crocodile on a table and we are able to go up and pet him. I am amazed at how soft it feels, I was expecting bony and hard plates. We find out this guy is named Goliath, and we find it amusing as his handler points out he is named David.
The boats that we get onto have windows by the seats and then a grate area at the top for air movement and protection. The seats are like stadium seats with the ones closest to the window lower down and then they step up to the aisle seats, with three seats on either side of the aisle. As we drive around the lagoon the driver/zoologist points out the different crocs and tells us their names. Most names have a back story. One named Colgate has very white teeth. Another named fluffy ate two Pomeranian dogs, etc.
She parks the boat up along the bank and puts some raw chicken on a pole and starts tapping the water with the pole and calling to the crocs. There are a couple of crocs that I can see about 30 feet away in the water. The water is clearer here in the lagoon than it was on Green Island.
One of the crocs isn’t interested and starts swimming away, but after a couple of minutes the other one starts swimming towards the boat. The croc jumps up out of the water and snaps its jaw closed as she pulls the food away. It makes a loud pop sound as their powerful jaws slam together. She does it a couple more times before engaging with a croc on the other side of the boat.
It's interesting to watch the croc glide through the water and other than the small ripples where he first goes down, there is no wake or ripples from him moving in the water. Our driver says the crocs need a visual on the food to leap out of the water, which is why she keeps hitting the water with the food.
I thought my camera was recording for this, but later I found it wasn't, so here is Nate's video of the croc jumping for the food and having a nice "jaw pop"
Our driver tells us that they don’t actually want to feed the crocs every time, as they don’t want them to eat too much. She also tells us that the Lagoon at Hartley’s is actually a fresh water lagoon. Saltwater crocs can live in either salty or fresh water, which gives them the ability to travel in the ocean or up the rivers. This lagoon is also man made, it used to be farm land before being transformed into this crocodile park in the early 2000s.
She points out a saltwater croc nest. They are actually a croc farm here as well as a park, so they have to take all the eggs legally. Most baby crocs get eaten in the wild and they don't want baby crocs headed out into neighboring areas as baby crocs could get through the fencing around the lagoon.
There is a large bird of prey up in a tree (not part of the park, just part of nature) so the driver put some chicken on a branch and the bird swoops down and grabs it.
The boat ride only lasts about 20 minutes and then we are brought back to the dock. We have a little bit of time to explore before heading for the croc feeding show.
The salt water feeding show is super interesting. They really do a lot of teasing of the crocs. Not sure if they are brave, dumb, or both, but it is interesting and exciting to watch. Watching the crocs makes you appreciate them even more as an ambush predator.
When they entice the croc to jump up and snap their jaws closed it makes a loud pop sound. With bigger crocs it can be as loud as a gunshot. Crocs have the strongest bite force of any animal on the land at 3700 psi (pounds per square inch) and only less than a Great White Shark and Orca Whale. A human can only get up to as high as 200 psi!
When they are in the pen with the crocs they often use food hanging from a rope on a pole. They can use the pole as a barrier between them and the croc, or they can tap their head which makes them close their eyes allowing them to more safely walk past them.
One of the crocs they introduce is Crunch, she is a feisty female croc. With her they are hand feeding, so literally dangling a chicken a couple feet above her trying to get her to snatch it. I’m not sure why she doesn’t just go for them instead of the chicken, but amazingly they said they haven’t had any major incidents in their 35 years of operation.
They advise to not go buy a chicken and go out in the wild and try to feed a crocodile, they have been training these crocs to behave in a certain way. If you do it, you’ll have what they call a cultural misunderstanding.
Norman is the only male croc in this enclosure and he is lurking in the water. He was caught in Norman creek close to Cairns. His crime was eating the dogs of Yoruba (the native people). Several dogs had gone missing in the community, which is a sign that there’s probably a croc in town. So they put out crocodile traps and the food was going missing but they weren’t catching a croc. Well they discovered that the dogs were coming and eating the food in the croc trap and Norman was catching the dogs as they left the trap. So he was making good use of his walnut-size brain to keep from getting trapped.
Our narrator tells us that anytime a person dies of a suspected croc encounter, they kill the croc to try and recover remains and also investigate. There have been a few times where the body recovered actually had gunshot wounds, which the guy tells us that crocodiles aren’t known to pack heat!
They hand feed Norman at the waters edge and then entice him to grab onto a cowhide attached to a rope so they can demonstrate “death rolls” and “head shakes”. These are tactics that crocs will use to pull apart their food, so they can eat them in more manageable chunks. They have pretty pokey teeth with no grinding teeth like we have, so they have to repeatedly bite it and then shake it to tear whatever they are eating apart.
While Norman is demonstrating these skills he actually severs the rope that was holding the cowhide and is holding the cowhide in his mouth. He tells us that the rope is made out of hemp, and that the crocs can’t digest hair or fibers like that, so it will build up in their gut and then they will throw up a hairball, like a cat…yuck. They try to entice him to let go of the cowhide with some chicken, but are unsuccessful.
Norman is about 3.7 meter long, which is just over 12 feet, but that is still below average for a male salty.
After they are done feeding the Saltwater Crocs, a few of them head over to the Freshwater Crocs which are slightly smaller, but just as snappy. Their mouths are also more narrow, which they said are better suited for catching fish and insects. These Freshwater Crocs don’t get nearly as big as the Salties do, with a max length of under 10 feet for males and just under 7 feet for females.
Freshwater Crocs or “Freshies” can actually high walk, where they hold their bodies off the ground as they walk and they can even “gallop” or sprint to the water's edge when threatened. They tell us that they don’t know whoever started the myth that you should run away from a croc in a zig zag pattern. You should run away as fast as possible, which is in a straight line. Crocs are slightly faster than humans but they are only capable of running for short distances, so “Run Forrest, Run!”
After the feedings are done we set off to see the rest of the park. They have some other pens with some large Salties that are big problem crocs. Chopper for example is a 50 year old male that is around 4.3 meters (14.1’ long). He’s had psychotic anti-social behavior, attacking other crocs several times, so they keep him in solitary confinement.
Boris is a little smaller, at 4 meters and 300 kg (661 lbs). He was one of the original crocs in the lagoon. He has many scars from fighting and even lost his right foot to a rival croc.
Spartacus is about the same weight and length as Boris. He used to be in the 11 AM feeding show with 5 other males and 15 females, but he became very aggressive and they had to remove him from the group.
Besides crocs they also have some smaller areas with other animals. They have a fenced in area with some wallabies that you can go into, but we have found the wallabies to be quite shy. They also have some fenced areas inside this larger area with smaller creatures like a Red-legged Pademelon, which looks like a tiny kangaroo. They also have a couple Koalas, and some different kinds of lizards and monitors.
Komodo dragon
About 30 minutes later there was a small show for kids where they had a baby python, a Frogmouth bird, and Blue-tongue Skink. They gave information about the animals and let the kids pet the snake and lizard.
Even though we kind of want to stay to watch the 3 PM Croc Attack show, we also want to go check out Port Douglas, so we decided it was time to leave. It is already 1 PM and we don’t want to eat in the cafeteria.
They make you exit through the gift shop and we admire the crocodile purses and wallets that they sell. I ask how they get such vibrant colors when croc skin is quite dark. Besides going through a tanning process, it is also bleached to a uniform light color that they can then dye to whatever shade they like.
Prices vary from 500 AUD (330 USD) for a wallet, into the many thousands for purses. You can buy crocodile skulls for 1,100-2,100 AUD or more. Not sure I want to try to bring that through customs!
Port Douglas is only about a half hour away. We find parking along the main street in town with lots of shops and restaurants. After walking the boardwalk we settle on a place called Central Hotel which may also be a hotel, but down below is an open restaurant.
We had finished eating our grapes as a snack on the drive, so we aren't overly hungry. We get one order of fish and chips to share. The food comes out pretty quickly and was quite tasty.
The beach is very interesting. The sand is all hard wet sand all the way up to the grass area. When you walk on it the sand doesn’t really make impressions at all, as it’s so firm. There are tons of little sand balls across the beach on top of the sand, which we eventually learn are created by sand crabs digging holes.
The ocean water feels perfect. Because we aren't planning on swimming we just wade in a short way and walk along the beach.
We go check out some tide pools at the north end of the beach, and find tons of tiny hermit crabs, some of the shells are only about ¼” wide or even smaller. If you don’t look for them moving you wouldn’t even see them. We are amused at how many of them there are in all kinds of shells. Nate is wondering if there are any bigger crabs and starts looking. I do notice a few that are maybe 3” across, but they are quick to disappear between the rocks, so no pictures. Landon finds a starfish in one of the tide pools.
We don't have very long at the beach as we need to head back to our hotel, drop off our rental car, and get to dinner for a 6:30 dinner reservation. We realize that Nate must have accidentally left his water bottle at the rental car place when he picked up the car this morning. They will be closed by the time we drop off the car, so on the drive back I try to call the rental place to ask them to leave it out back. I have no cell signal, so he’ll just have to walk back there tomorrow and get it.
Nate says this sign usually means you are required to drift when it's wet...he is disappointed it is dry
Rex Lookout along Captain Cook Highway
People stacking rocks on a rocky beach along the highway
Watch out for Roos!
The hotel we are staying at is opening a new restaurant and the first two nights they invite only some of the hotel guests to do a soft opening and give their staff some experience. Nate drops Kailey and me off with our bags at the hotel and he and Landon bring the car back and then walk to the hotel. While they are doing that Kailey and I shower and change so we look a little fancier as this is a more upscale restaurant.
We make it just in time for our dinner reservation. The restaurant, The Vine Room, is much fancier than we would normally choose with no kids meals available. We pick just a couple meals to share with the kids that we think they may like, a steak dinner and chicken dinner, plus some bread and fries. The kids eat well and are really impressed at how fancy everything is.
My chicken is pretty good but a little salty. I pull the skin off the chicken which helps.
These fries are really delicious! The flatbread is good but also a little salty.
Nate was trying to decide between two different steak options, and they ended up bringing out the wrong one. The steak was good. After eating this one they order the other one also as they are still hungry. The second one that I forget to take a picture of is "amazing" according to Nate and the kids.
There is a fancy olive oil jar on each table.
For this special soft opening, they ask you to pay for your drinks and then pay what you want for what you valued your dinner at. We want to be fair, so this is our most expensive meal of the trip. Overall it is a great experience and we all think it was fun to be a part of the restaurant opening.
We then go to the night market one last time. Landon has been trying to decide between a couple of different things and this was his last opportunity before we leave. He buys his last items and we head back to the hotel for one last night.
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