SWIMMING WITH CROCODILES. PART TWO.

My father was going back to the river care of the crocodile.  He had heard recent reports from stockmen that a crocodile had been in the river near the homestead. Having just been nearly taken crossing the river overnight, there was clear evidence of that.  He knew it would be most probably at the Big Hole as it was known. Crocs liked to sun themselves during the day and where better; The Big Hole.

The Big Hole was a large bend in the Suttor River which flowed past the Lornesleigh homestead. Its measured depth was over twenty feet deep. A large sand bank jutted into it and it was a great place to swim on a hot day.  Years later, I remember that it looked like an expanse of beach.  Only difference is the river sand is course and the water wasn’t rolling waves but murky still water. In fact, my mother had been recently swimming in The Big Hole while she had been pregnant with me. Obviously a croc was not in the big hole at the time or was it?

My father left the homestead armed with a German Mauser bolt action rifle 9.3 calibre. It had previously belonged to a game warden in Kenya. The homestead was two miles from the Big Hole. Dad said he stalked the croc upwind along the river for a mile. He knew by previous experience that crocodiles were sensitive to smell and movement.  Getting to a hundred yards from the big hole he was able to first see sight of his target. Thinking it was going to one crocodile, instead it was two; a male and female.

My father stepped slowly forward, but started to sink into a patch of soft sand up to his waist. He pulled himself out of it but the noise of his exertion, started to unsettle the crocodiles. They slid slowly towards the edge of the sand. Dad knew he only had seconds to shoot. He slipped off the safety, aimed and fired just as they slipped into the water. The male buckled as it was hit and then both crocodiles disappeared under the dark water. 

Thinking he had missed, dad returned disappointed to the homestead. A few days later, the mailman was crossing the river when he spotted the male crocodile floating dead on its back. It measured 16 feet ( 4.8 metres). The female crocodile disappeared but there were always suspected sightings over the years. Swimming in the river always made me feel a little uneasy as a kid. Would the female crocodile ever return? Thankfully, she never did.   

SWIMMING WITH CROCODILES

For many years crocodiles filled the rivers that my family’s cattle stations were situated on. They had not taken a human being during the hundred years that my family lived there but that wasn’t for want of trying.

The danger with crocodiles is that you could not see them in the water even if they were right near you as the water is very murky. You would only see them when they came out of the water and grabbed you. The crocs could always see you. Dad remembers an Aboriginal stockman filling his billy can at the river bank one day. The stockman couldn’t move quick enough to fill his billy and jump back from the water. He knew they were there.

Crocodiles were always a danger to cattle especially when they wandered down to the river to drink. Dad had seen bulls over the years with large claw marks on them. Those cattle were the lucky ones, probably only saved by their weight and fighting spirit.  The closest one of the my family had come to being taken by a croc was when my father tried to cross a river one night, only to be confronted by two orange-coloured eyes coming towards him through the water. The water was up to his chest and he luckily had time to get out of the water.

Choosing discretion over valor, dad decided to sleep that night on the river bank.Unfortunately for dad, when he arrived back at the homestead in the morning for breakfast, my mother got very angry with him. She thought that he had been drinking all night with his brother at the other station. Dad went to the gun cabinet. For the sake of domestic harmony that croc had to go. More of that story in my next blog.  

Until the 1970s, crocodiles could be hunted and so my father and uncle had made a concerted effort to rid the rivers of the man-eating reptile. They finally succeeded in the late 1950’s. Dad is always credited with shooting the last crocodile.  I was born in 1958 and don’t remember seeing any crocodiles in the rivers as a kid. But there was always the myth that not all had been shot.  To be continued. 

GUNS

NOTE: PISTOL HANGING ON BEDHEAD. READY FOR ACTION.LORNESLEIGH. LATE 1960'S.

I want to say upfront. I’m not a gun enthusiast myself but I can see a place for a firearm. In the Australian bush especially there’s definitely a need to carry a firearm whether it be a pistol or rifle.

 You never know when you’ll have to put down livestock that are in pain or unable to walk. There may be the need to shoot dingoes who attack and kill the cattle. Wild cattle known as shrubbers will also be shot as they can’t be mustered and will definitely kill a human if approached.

It may sound cruel and unnecessary to some, but cattle are your livelihood and they have to be protected. A firearm will be carried these days in four wheel drive ( RV) but in the old days, they were carried on a horse. I remember my dad, carrying a pump action Remington rifle in the car which he called the dingo gun. When riding a horse, my father carried a pistol and my grandfather Bell, had a lever action Winchester in a holster attached to his saddle.

Yes, I almost forgot, a gun may even save your life in the bush. Apart from rampaging shrubbers coming out of the bush at you, there are snakes and just before I was born in the late fifties, the rivers on our cattle stations were full of crocodiles. My dad shot the last one when I was a baby. Apparently. But that’s another blog.  I have to add,native animals such as kangaroos were not considered as animals to shoot by my family.  

Horses, cattle and the land are the building blocks of my family’s dna but my father and his brother were the gun nuts for want of a better term. Between them their gun collection probably could have outfitted a large partisan group who wanted to take on the Nazis. Their collection comprised many types of firearms, ranging from conventional rifles, shotguns and pistols to a World War One machine gun that had once been mounted on an aircraft. I remember that was stored under a bed. As you do.

Yes, there was the Martini Henry that had been used by the English in the Zulu War. It took bullets made of wrapped brass with a lead bullet and when fired, enveloped the area in a white cloud.  You had to look under the cloud to see if you had hit the target. There were many military rifles from several countries; British, American, Italian, Japanese and German.  It’s all worth another blog.