Welcome to the site from New Jersey, USA, Captain Ishrub.
So, you hail from Crocodile Dundee country, eh, mate? Rum Jungle looks very intriguing... Cheers!
Yep Rum Jungle near Batchelor was well named. It was the first significant Uranium Mine in Australia shortly after WWII and made us even better pals with the USA. It shut down in the 1970's and the big pit was filled with the contaminated mining equipment and left to fill in the massive wet season rains with 60" + falling from Nov to April. It is about 90 meters deep with shelves. Quite a few people have drowned there since as it is a local swimming and camping reserve. There is a sign advising not to stay for more than a couple of days as the background radiation is still quite high. Its our own Simpsons Springfield with many long necked turtles and 1000's of small 2-4 inch native Rainbow fish that nibble the dead skin from your feet and legs, and deformed versions of the fish are not uncommon.
This Wikipedia is well worth a read
Rum Jungle, Northern Territory - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
Luckily my block is 20+Km away and upstream at the very headwaters of the Finniss River South branch which is still populated with hundreds of harmless fresh water crocs and a few salty maneater types get up the rivers and creeks in the wet season. They also inhabit dams and billabongs after the annual wet season floods subside so I even don't linger near or jump into my dams for a swim until carefully studying the edges for print and scrape marks. The bastards can even walk 10+km overland when seeking a new water hole.
I have had many close encounters over the years fishing the Adelaide and Mary River systems for barramundi usually at night in a little 11'.5" tinny with 9.9hp Johnson - about 4-6" of freeboard with 3 onboard and the sacraficial dog. My now deceased red kelpie dog Jake (a motorcycling legend in his own right) used to love snapping at lures as you cast and fell in more than once with foul screams of encouragement to swim back to the boat to be hauled in by the collar before he got munched.
Some of them grow to 16' and the males get cranky and are well known to attack running outboards and bite holes in tinnies during the mating season. They run croc cruises on both rivers and have trained the crocs to jump for the tourists.
Jumping Crocodile Cruise | Adelaide River Cruises the video is worth a look. They do it in the wild to take birds from the air and a bloke got snatched and killed from his 15' tinny in Kakadu a year or so ago.
Category: | NT News
That link has a long list of attacks in the past at the end and some good photos and video.
Jeezz I haven't even had a glass of red today YET and the fingers have started spouting stories. it must be retirement and 'old fogie' kicking in LOL.
