(updated April 2023 - see bottom)

My friend Max came to visit in May 2022. 

Within two hours of my picking him up from the airport, we had set off on a tour of the bush parts of the block.

Our route started at a gloomy shed on the bank of the deepest permanent pool in the rainforest.  The shed houses a pump which we use to draw water up to a tank at the shack (about 300 metres away). The former owners called the shed 'the pump house' and the pool 'the billabong' - both names have stuck.

Immediately, Max and I were greeted with the smell of something (very) dead.  We soon spotted the source: a feral pig carcass snagged in a partly submerged tree branch about 20 metres from the pump house.  

Unfortunately the pig was upstream of the pump intake, so there was the risk it would foul the water supply.

So the block tour was postponed; and instead, Max and I each rigged up contraptions to get the pig out of the water.  His worked better, and we* were able to drag the carcass up into the rainforest, where we then spent another half an hour or so burying it.  (*I use 'we' loosely here - I was nursing a crook shoulder from overdoing it a few days earlier, so I grudgingly allowed Max to do most of the grunt work.)

Although I'd become accustomed to the block's habit of laughing in the face of my best-laid plans, it was a perfect introduction for Max, who in six hours had gone from sitting in the bland comfort of the departure lounge at Brisbane airport to being covered in mud and smelling of dead pig.

When we'd first spotted the carcass, it had appeared quite small.  I thought it was maybe a piglet that had drowned.  But once we'd landed it, it turned out to be quite big; it was clearly a young adult, albeit one that had parted ways with much of its body.

There was one explanation that was more likely than any other (we'd been told before buying the block that saltwater crocodiles were a possibility); however, in the absence of a sighting, I think I allowed myself to think that maybe a large freshwater croc could have been responsible.

Sonja and I had seen a couple of freshies in the previous months.  One was probably big enough to take on a pig, but it seemed to hang out at the other end of the block.  The other, which I had spotted right beside the pump house, would definitely have have been a suspect, had it not been only 30cm long.

tiny freshie at the pump house, eva valley
A few months later, I was working in the rainforest, about 100 metres upstream from the pump house.  

I was well into digging a large hole in the loamy ground around a shallow spring that feeds into the billabong.  The aim was to expand the spring into a plunge pool that would be safe and deep enough to cool off in on hot days.  The idea seemed to be working - I'd already created a bathtub-sized hole that quickly filled up with nice clear water.

And then the block started laughing again.

Another dead pig turned up in the billabong - this one up against the bank right at the point where water from the 'bathtub spring' trickled into the main pool.

Max-less, I quickly realised what was in store for me; however, it was late afternoon, and I was tired, and the pig was quite a long way from the pump intake, and it didn't seem too smelly just yet... (or, just perhaps, I was looking for any excuse to put off the inevitable).

I went back the next morning (armed with Max's bespoke pig-hooker) only to discover that the carcass was now wedged into the submerged roots of a large clump of pandanus trees, well out of reach on the far side of the billabong.  My disappointment - which, in truth, was half-hearted - gave way to a strong sense that whatever had moved the pig was probably nearby.

Xavier (our elderly and not especially brave pooch) and I went back for another look later that day.  We approached slowly from upstream, well back from the water's edge.  I could see the pandanus clump (which was diagonally across the billabong) but not the pig.  

Then I heard a swoosh and saw the back half of the saltie sliding into the pool from under the pandanus.  Xav and I were maybe 20 metres away.

Although I was (sort of) expecting it, I was not ready for how massive it looked.  I'd seen many crocs in my time in the NT, but never in such a confined space.  And never in the backyard.

I was also struck by how quietly it entered the water and how, despite its bulk, it barely caused a ripple in the surface of the billabong.

In the following days, I returned several times with my camera.  I discovered that the croc was easily spooked and that I needed to creep through the forest to get close enough for a decent look.  Although I could sneak up out of sight behind the many trees and vines, a snapped twig was enough to spoil the mission.

Even when I had a good line of sight to the croc's lair, I could not see the whole animal.  Usually I'd spot the tail first and then try and work out where the rest was likely to be.  The croc's head was not always visible, but whenever I managed to spot it, its eye seemed to be looking straight at me.

golden eye

I haven't seen it for a while, but have no reason to think it's not around.

I can only guess how big it is; but it is big (maybe 3.5 metres).  And it is solid - no doubt well fed by the steady stream of wildlife that comes to drink at the billabong.  It is definitely the sort of animal that could eat a person if given the chance.

Some people are appalled at the idea that we have a potential man-eater living a few hundred metres from the shack.

I see it differently.  

The croc is not in an area where we would ever have considered swimming.   It poses no threat to us if we stay back from the edge of the deeper pools.  And there is pretty compelling evidence that it helps get rid of feral pigs.

And it's exactly where it's meant to be (or was meant to be - see below).

[PS - I'd basically finished this post months ago but had been typically slack about tidying it up and sticking it up on the blog.  As it happens, this is a very good day to publish it. The photo above of the saltie is included in the artwork for the latest album by The Church, The Hypnogogue, which has been released today. (It's brilliant of course.)]

Update - April 2023

Our neighbour to the north (a mango farmer) came over in early March asking if we'd seen his dog.  We hadn't.  He suspected it may have been taken by a croc.  Within a few days a croc trap appeared in his dam (which is actually more like a wetland and is separated from our block by a causeway).  A few weeks later a 3.6 metre saltie was apparently caught (and most likely relocated to a croc farm).

I strongly suspect it was 'ours'.