Another day, another miny tour. Today it was the turn of the Croc park and tributory cruise

Leaving the harbour early in the morning, the boat slowly mooched out of the harbour. The boat driver (pilot / captain / not sure what he'd be) gave us a bit of a spiel about the boats and local area we were passing. View image
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The boat itself was very nice (a technical term) with 2 levels. We spent most of the time on the top deck - with the better views. Usually there would be a lot of people on the trip, but the day we went there were about 10 of us - so we pretty much had the deck to ourselves. View image.

The tributaries themselves are home of the Mangroves. I honestly thought they were an american thing - I didn't realise Australia had them too. Apparently they are home to many crocs out there, but on the particular day we were there, none were spotted. As it was a hot day they would have been underwater keeping cool.
Along side our captain giving us the spiel about Cairns and the boats kept at the harbour, once we were out into the tributaries our naturalist took over the microphone and began to point out all manner of wildlife and plants of interest. View image
Unfortunatly I don't remember any of it now - but be assured it was very informative. View image.
After a very pleasant and interesting morning on the river, we reached the midpoint of the tour and disembarked for the croc part of the day.
The croc farm is the largest in the world, and supplies the croc skins to the big design houses of Europe like Chanel and Versace. The farm is massive and holds more crocodiles than you can shake a stick at (not that you'd want to go round shaking sticks at crocs - they might get annoyed) View image. It just so happened we were there at the end of the mating season, and they all seemed to be a bit grumpy.
The crocs themselves are HUGE - they don't get much past the age of about 3 - thats when they reach their maximum size and its payday for the owners of the farm. View image

The baby ones still think they are about 3 months old apparently and all huddle together in a big pack View image

I have to say, the idea of going to a working croc farm was a bit offputting to begin with, but the guided tour we had was very informative, and it seemed that the crocs themselves are pretty much coddled throughout their lives.
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It turned out to be probably the most informative day we had in Cairns, and would recommend it highly. Gotta love those crocs grrrrr.