Dinosaurs are one of my favorites from childhood, and the closest species to Earth today is crocodiles, and the vast northern part of the Northern Territory is the best place on earth to protect the crocodile king, the saltwater alligator, besides the climate here. Geomorphology and so on are very close to the dinosaur era, and there is even a place called dinosaur valley that reflects the geological characteristics of the Cretaceous period, so in my mind this territory is the true Jurassic park in the world today. The tour of Jurassic Park is:
Darwin's Cage of death-Adelaide Crocodile Jump-Mary River National Park-Kakadu National Park-Huang Shui Tan Wetland
First come to the simple science of the salt water crocodile. First of all, in the living environment, this crocodile has long lived in the tidal marshes in the estuary. During the rainy season, the estuary area is vast. After hundreds of millions of years of evolution, the crocodile can live in the sea for a long time. Secondly, in terms of body shape, The inland freshwater crocodile is much smaller than the saltwater crocodile except for the one in the African grasslands.
Tips：
The world's three largest scenic sites for wild crocodiles: Everglades National Park in Florida, Marseille Park in Kenya and Kakadu National Park in Australia's Northern Territory.
Darwin's cage of death
Darwin, the northernmost city of mainland in Australia, is also the capital of the Northern Territory, with no spring, summer, autumn, winter, only two rainy and dry seasons of the year. The dry season from May to October is the peak season for tourism in the region, because the rainy season is so wet and hot that mosquitoes are rampant. The key is that roads in many scenic spots are inconvenient to travel, and crocodiles are harder to search for because their range of activities has increased several times.
he Death Cage is a very famous project for interacting with crocodiles and is located in a private crocodile theme park in the Darwin CBD. The principle of the activity is to use a crane to drop a plexiglass tank containing one or two tourists, and then put the transparent tank into the pool of the giant crocodile. At this time, the tank is also injected into the water in the crocodile pool to experience swimming with the giant crocodile. I feel that the world is currently in this place.
The following is the protagonist of the death cage. At present, the largest crocodile in Australia, called "Chopper," is now in its eighties. Cold-blooded reptiles as long as they have plenty of food and a good living environment. In theory, it will continue to grow, so this kind of animals are older and bigger, which is why the crocodiles are so huge, but do not think it is an old-fashioned old man.
Tips：
Because crocodiles are not active enough in the dry season, the early crocodiles will be a little excited.
In addition to the world-famous interactive event, the crocodile theme park also has the experience of visiting and feeding dozens of crocodiles of varying sizes; Besides crocodiles and other famous local reptiles, they are smaller lizards that are harder to find in the wild this season.
Adelaide River crocodile jump
This is a long-standing and well-known activity in the Darwin area of the Northern Territory, which matured as early as 1986 when the famous film Alligator Dundee was filmed, because it was set up in many parts of the film. To put it simply, artificial feeding of crocodiles in a wild environment is not about ordinary feeding, but a hyperbole of teasing crocodiles to get more than half of their bodies out of the water. It is precisely because of this kind of interference in the natural ecology by many environmental protection and animal protection organizations of the protest, has been forced to shut down a few years ago, see once less.
The Adelaide River itself is very beautiful, this is a civil aviation plane mobile phone photographed with the photo
The cruise point was next to the road from Darwin to Kakadu, just before the Adelaide River Bridge.
Alligator Company selection: recommend the old company on the south bank of the bridge-Original Jumping, Bridge North Bank company mainly play tour group;
Ship type choice: 1: 00 p. M., 1: 00 a. M. every day, more prepared for tour groups, small boat is the best choice to experience rocking alligator. This activity does not need to be booked in advance, because it sends a ship every hour, it is very convenient.
It's supposed to keep the crocodiles in the neighborhood hungry and excited for sustainable development, so a cruise only feeds five to six times, but it makes people scream again.
One of the biggest wild crocodiles seen on the trip to Tuao is the giant, who lives in his 60s in the area where cruise companies perform alligators all year round. Dark looks and demonic faces, as they swim to us, are exactly the same as all the horror movies about crocodiles. If the cruise boat happens to encounter it, it is absolutely not tempting to be courteous, a little bit of beef with respectfully filial piety.
Before feeding the crocodile, there was a show feeding the wild falcon. The narrator spilled small meats onto the river, and the brave birds swooped down like arrows to snatch the meat. Before we fed the crocodiles, they were parked in the surrounding trees, probably very tacitly waiting here.
Mary River National Park Sunset Cruise
Mary River National Park (Mary River National Park), located between Darwin and Kakadu National Park, is the second largest national park in the mouth of the Northern Territory after Kakadu, but its river course in the mouth delta is more complex than Kakadu's. So although the area is much smaller, but its wetland swamp ecology is still very excellent.
Open hours: only in the dry season.
Our boat.
The best time to watch wildlife in the wild, especially carnivores, is early in the morning or dusk, not to mention the beautiful sunrise and sunset in the marsh, where we take part in a sunset cruise. With the little afterglow of the sun at sunset, the trees on the edge of the swamp were perfectly silhouetted, and such a quiet evening seemed to make one forget that it was still water. Everyone is waiting for the water bird below to spread its wings, showing the unique beauty of "falling Sauvignon and the lone Dog fly together."
This is a boathouse hotel that can float on the river, and it's a great choice for touring the river.
Here's my favorite protagonist, the saltwater alligator. Of the ten or so potential crocodiles found, this isn't big enough to be the first complete landing we've ever found in the wild of the Northern Territory.
Note: the crocodile is cruising on the side of the boat. Please do not extend any part of your body out of the boat!
Mary River became a national park not because of the beauty of nature, but because of its colorful life. With the exception of crocodiles, birds of all colors are the absolute blossoms in swamps during the two hours of cruising.
Lens selection: 600mm to 1200mm focal section, because there are too few birds here.
The most surprising thing about the Mary River Wetland trip is to see the whole process of water birds catching and devouring catfish, torturing the fish for half a day but swallowing the fish faster than the blink of an eye. Look at the look of the last waterbird that looks like a descendant of a dinosaur!
This is the first exotic bird I found, the scientific name is the snakeneck bird, not only because the neck is long, but the neck can be as flexible as a snake, in the premise of the body can not move more than 180 degrees of flexible rotation of the head and neck!
Aircraft Tour of Kakadu National Park
Kakadu National Park, Australia's largest, the world's second largest national park, belongs to the world's natural and cultural heritage. The main protection of nature is to protect its unique ecological diversity, distributed in tidal swamp wetlands, impact plain low-lying grassland, plateau mountains, etc. The cultural aspect is mainly to protect the cultural relics of the indigenous people who have a history of 40,000 years here.
Even if you enter Kakadu National Park after this sign, in addition to this kind of scenic sign, the most common sign in the park is: cherish your life, keep at least five meters away from any water area, prohibit swimming in any unknown waters, and so on. When I saw it, it gave me a lot of blood.
Tickets: adult 40 Australian dollars, in the scenic area inside and outside the information center can buy, there is no special ticket inspection place depends on self-awareness.
Tips：
1. The road in the national park is very narrow, so drive yourself must pay attention to driving safety very much!
2. The whole Kakadu has almost no signal, except for the only human gathering point, Jabiru;, where there is a very special crocodile hotel, and the whole hotel is a crocodile model.
In Kakadu National Park, the crocodile was found to have chosen an aircraft cruise. The park has three small airports for sightseeing, Jabiru Airport is the largest of them, in fact, the most popular here is the following glider.
Glider advantages: the flight altitude and speed level is higher than the helicopter, so the flight range is generally larger than the helicopter, the same flight time will see more scenery;
Glider downside: it's almost inconvenient to take pictures, not to mention that the windows won't open, and the two wings that stretch out will basically destroy all the good lines of sight. And helicopter-like hovering, ultra-low altitude and large angle tilt slow flight is even more impossible; so you can choose aircraft type according to your actual needs.
This time we chose a helicopter, and the feeling of flying without a door can not be described in words, especially when we approach various wild animals at a very low altitude of less than 10 meters. It felt like I was a professional wildlife scholar. But there is trouble, too. A little wind can be unbearable, the jitter of the plane will be greater, and how much the camera will be affected.
This time I chose a helicopter.
Thirty minutes of flight, first through Kakadu's more famous mountain and eastern crocodile valleys, after passing through the eastern crocodile river valley, the landscape beneath our feet has gradually changed from mountain to valley. Because it is the dry season, it is obvious that the water level of the river is low, and the two sides of the river are covered with wet sediment, and countless crocodiles lie in the sand to bathe the sun. After seeing it, our pilot is excited to lower the plane a little more than we do. I was completely shocked by this sudden shock, and although there was no good photo left behind, this short three or four minutes was the most exciting moment of my trip to Darwin.
The second stage of flight is the boundless marsh wetlands, because of the depth of the water, the colors of water plants are different, making the wetlands also appear colorful. Coupled with the constant changes in the angle of the sun, looking at are oil paintings. Like the Great Barrier Reef, swamps can only be seen in the sky. As soon as the water grows, the wildlife grows, first the wild horse, then the boar, and the pilot again lowers the plane for our appreciation after discovering the wild boar.
The most shocking animal scene is the flock of waterbirds, I wonder if it is because of our disturbance, a layer from the lake to brush off the ground. It used to be seen only in top documentaries like < planet earth >, and now they're flying under our feet.
Sunrise cruise of Huang Shui Tan Wetland
Huang Shui Tan Wetland (Yellow Water) located in the center of Kakadu National Park is a developed and mature wetland cruise with sunrise and sunset cruises as an option.
Recommendation: sunrise cruise;
Recommended reason: the yellow pool sky at sunrise gradually turns red from purple, and then from yellow to blue, just as God is turning on the sky! The sunset was a yellow pool, because all the other boats were nearby, and the water was not calm enough to catch the silhouette of the reflection like the Mary River, which was much less than the sunrise.
Tips：
If you want to take part in the sunrise cruise, it is recommended to live near Huang Shui Tan the night before.
Recommend: Cooinda Lodge Kakadu, the cabin hotel, the best hotel in Kakadu, especially convenient to travel to events, the downside is that there is no signal.
Huang Shui Tan is so wonderful that compared with the previous Mary River, the water area of Huang Shui Tan is several times larger. And you don't want to see saltwater crocodiles in the yellow pool until the end of the day, because of the cold and warm weather, most crocodiles lie on shore during sunset cruises, and almost all crocodiles are in the water during sunrise cruises. While cruising at sunset, we found two giant crocodiles, both of which looked as if they were in the sun. The crocodile's eye is what I think the crocodile is the most magical place, through the thin black line in the eye is the god of death.
In addition to crocodiles, Kakadu National Park also has the rarest mammal, the Australian buffalo. Like the African buffalo in Kenya, it looks too much like our buffalo. There are always three or five water birds on or around the back of each bison, so harmoniously they stroll around the grass.
The next is Huang Shui Tan, where birds far outnumber the Mary River in both species and numbers. Unfortunately, no bird map can be found in the park, and there is no way to separate the scientific names of the birds.
Shooting equipment: 600mm, f4 lens
Alcedo atthis bengalensis （我国东南部常见留鸟， 亦称“钓鱼郎”）
Signs of Kakadu National Park
So far, the trip to the North Territory has been introduced, this mysterious world barely known by mainland visitors, thousands of words here are pale, good-bye, Jurassic Park.
By white-stone
