Crocs and Coincidence at the Market

“Crocodile infested” is a much over-used term to describe Australian rivers and waterways, however, when applied to the muddy waters of the Adelaide River in the Northern Territory, it is perhaps a bit of an understatement. Taking a day off from preparing for Mindil Market on Thursday night, on Wednesday Sandra and I went crocodile hunting with Lawrie and nephew Calum. Fortunately for the crocs, the hunting was to be carried out with cameras rather than guns although we did plan to catch a few fish for dinner. Setting off from the boat ramp in Lawrie’s sleek, fast boat we were almost immediately besieged by crocs looking for breakfast.

This part of the river is used by cruise operators to take tourists on “Jumping Crocodile” trips. This involves hanging a pole with lumps of meat attached to a rope over the water to attract the crocs which rear out of the water to take the meat which is held tantalisingly out of reach. These cruise boats are high out of the water to ensure the fare paying passengers are thrilled but not eaten. As the cruises run several times a day the crocs are used to the sound of boat engines and, on hearing them, emerge from the depths for their daily snack. However Lawrie’s boat is a little smaller and afford slightly less protection when the big ones sidle up looking for a titbit and we found ourselves eyeball-to-eyeball with numerous evil looking monsters – thankfully all incident free.

Fishing was also pretty incident free. If there were any fish in the river they were avoiding us like the plague and all we had to show for several hours fishing was one barramundi caught by Calum which had to be thrown back as it was too small. Apart from losing several lures the only bit of excitement was when Lawrie fell in up to his chest just yards from where we had spotted a medium sized croc.

On the way up river we stopped at Goat Island owned by a welcoming, but eccentric, Dane called Kai Hansen who left Denmark in 1971. As Scots we were welcomed as “fellow Vikings” which gave him an excuse to don his Viking gear, including an impressive horned helmet, and adopt menacing poses with his axe. I think living alone on a remote island, except for occasional visiting fishermen, has had an effect – how else can you explain having a pet 4.8 metre crocodile called Casey which had a habit of eating the other pets?

An excellent day out with many more crocs spotted on the way back basking on the muddy banks in the evening sun.

The next day was Sandra’s big day out at Mindil Market. This being “Territory Day” the market was set to be huge as it is the one day of the year that members of the public are allowed to buy and set off fireworks. From 9am to midnight the whole territory goes pyrotechnic crazy and at Mindil Beach there was a massive firework display launched from pontoons floating off shore. With a crowd of over 10,000 expected Sandra hoped to make one or two sales of her craftwork.

Coincidence, which had been an almost constant companion throughout the earlier part of our travels, raised its head once again at Mindil. I had been roped in to set up the stall and help sell the goods. Part of my selling spiel is to highlight the uniqueness of Sandra’s sunhat embellishments, pointing out that, as no one else in Australia is producing these out of knitted wire, to own one was the privilege of an exclusive few. “You will never have seen anything like these before” I would announce to the crowd. However I got my come-uppance when one young lady proclaimed, “I’ve seen one before – my mother bought one in Townsville!”

Now it is not good selling practice to argue in public with potential customers, however, as this was a threat to our exclusiveness, I had to take this further – in the nicest possible way. Sandra has only had two markets, both in Darwin, so it was highly unlikely that her mother in Townsville, 2000k away, could have bought one. However the story gradually unfolded. When we were in Townville, a few months earlier, we stayed with Kevin and Helen McCarthy and one evening several of Helen’s friends came round all of who were into crafting. One of these friends so liked Sandra’s work that she bought two sunhat embellishments and these had obviously been shown to friends and family. One of these, her daughter, lives in Darwin and coincidentally she was one of the10,000 crowd and just happened to pass Sandra’s stall – as I’ve said before “It’s a small world!”