Croc Safe by Martin Henderson

I have fished freshwater in the north every year for a quite few years, and during that time I have picked up some tips on how to stay alive in crocodile country.

On our first trip we travelled to Lakefield National Park, which was my first time camping in the northern bushland. My fishing companion, my brother-in-law Wayne, was a Cape local and he was only too keen to show an old Brisbanite like myself the best fishing haunts the north had to offer. But before we headed off Wayne gave me a run down of the warning signs to avoid crocodiles.

We had an early start to the day, up at 5.30am. After two hours of walking the bank casting lures, it became very hot and very humid, especially for a southerner. Wayne unfazed by the heat charged a 100m in front of me; and my 2m stature is defiantly a disadvantage when negotiating the low lying riparian foliage. Nevertheless, I was determined to land a big barra: I had to outdo Wayne with our 'first, biggest and most' bet, which had become a tradition.

Eagerness fuelling an overheated brain, I searched for likely looking snags to cast to without hanging up on the foliage around me. Above on a high bank I could see deep water with a 2cm thick twig protruding the water's surface. I scrambled down to even, flat ground and began casting the Gold Bomber past it, winding in slowly for a nice swaying body roll that sent off reflecting flashes of golden light. An intermittent jerk spiced the retrieve up a little.

After about six casts, with Wayne's previous taunts of "Why bother with little bass when you can come up here and catch big barra?" still reverberating between my ear holes, I started feeling strange and apprehensive. I looked around and realised I had put myself in the very position Wayne had warned me not to. I was on a narrow strip of only just dry land. Behind me was a steep slope with a 70 degree angle. The slope I came down was at about 45 degrees of hard baked earth with a layer of dried leaves. In front of me was deep water, and I couldn't see the bottom.

By this time I had stopped winding and my Bomber floated up beside the twig. My brain was now thumping me from the inside shouting at me to "Go!" I wound in that lure as fast as I could. An explosion of water just a few metres in front of me scared me out of my wits. My first thought was "Croc - I'm dead", until I saw the bronzed body of the largest freshwater barra I had still ever seen. It was powering away from me with my lure in its mouth. My 10km braid pulled tight, I was in such shock that I did not even think to fight the fish. With a drag set too tight for such a big fish it busted me off on the twig. Rather than lamenting losing the fish, I was just thinking how lucky I was that it was a fish that caused the commotion and not a croc.

Fully panicked, heart throbbing in my mouth, I scurried up the slope I came down, only to lose traction on the dry leaves. I slid back down 2m that I made on the 4m slope. I threw my rod up the bank and climbed up with my now two free hands, brushing aside the leaves to gain hand holds. My feet pushing me upwards only gaining traction on the spaces cleared of leaves by my hands. I obviously did not have an effective escape route.

I had broken some of the basic rules that Wayne had previously told me. I was too close to deep water and could not see the bottom of it. I did not have an effective escape route. I did not remain fully aware of my surroundings. The only thing I did do right was to listen to my sixth sense - eventually.

When I say 'my sixth sense', I mean the warning feelings you get when something is about to happen. We often hear people say, "I had a bad feeling about this..." when they explain an incident while doing nothing out of the ordinary in their normal lives.

This is adequately explained by retelling part of a discussion I had with Linda Rowe recently. Linda owns The Croc Shop, a souvenir shop in Cooktown, and has spent a very adventurous life on the cape. Linda has written about her early days on the cape in a book called Paradise Found - A cape York Adventure. She had an incident that doesn't appear in her book, as it happened just a few years ago.

Linda had finally found reliable directions to a very unfrequented waterhole that was starting to take on mythical status with her. She parked her car and walked with her German Sheppard the last 5km through scrub and long grass to the lagoon. There were not any tracks to follow, not even an animal pad. As she approached within 5m of it, alarm bells started ringing. As she turned away, a huge croc erupted from the water, grabbing the dog in a straddle length ways. She was being dragged while holding