Africa / d'Ankarafantsika / Madagascar

I guess there is no swimming in the lake

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After lunch we head down to a little lake. On the way down we meet the boat driver who is carrying the engine for the boat. Apparently he has to carry the engine to and from the boat every time he uses the boat to protect it from theft. He puts on the engine and then we are ready to go cruising on the lake.

For ones we are not going to spot lemurs but other and bigger wildlife. The main thing we are looking for is the crocodiles living in the lake – so even though it is a warm day this really isn’t the place for a cooling afternoon swim. It takes a while before we spot the first crocodile – and it is a tiny baby hanging around on a small tree in the lake. The small crocodile is probably hiding form the bigger animals living in the water and enjoying the sun in the afternoon before it will go back hunting from smaller fish in the lake.

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We continue the search for the crocodile and while we do this we enjoy the birds around the lake. There are some eagles hanging around in a tree next to the lake using it as their personal hunting ground. There are also a lot of different herons and other birds living of the fish in the lake.

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We continue the search for the crocodile – but suddenly it isn’t us finding the crocodile – it is the crocodile finding us. There is a pretty big croc swimming right by the boat a meter away. So we do get to see it up close. The crocodile only stays with us for a short while and then it decide to dive down and get away from the strangers on the boat and down in the safety of the deep.

Finally the captain spot a crocodile – I am not sure how he did it since it was far away on the other side of the river and could only just make it out using my zoom lens. We sail across the lake to get closer to the crocodile which is laying half way out of the water at the shore of the lake. We finally manage to get to the other side and then we can see the big crocodile close up. We stay a while and then this crocodile also decide to head away from us and in to the water.

We spot no more crocodiles but there are a lot of birds around the lake so we sail slowly around the lake looking at the many birds and then we finally get back to where we started and go back to shore.

37 comments

  7. WOAH! That croc is HUGE! Funny story- my husband and I once went swimming and wading in a croc infested swamp (but it was connected to the ocean) in Florida and had no idea there were crocs there …… nothing happened, but scary to think of what could have been ! Okay that story really wasn’t funny at all to think of it. ha! Love these wildlife pictures. Have a great week.

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    1. I have a similar story. Many years ago I went to a waterfall in a national park in Northern Australia. You could never swim in the rivers and lakes in the area because of crocs. But here they had made a croc fence in the water so apperently it was safe to swim. The next year they realized the croc fence had actually never touch the bottom of the river so the crocs could just swim under the fence. And ever since swimming in this river has been banned and they introduced a river cruise in most of the way to the falls.

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  8. You are fearless! I have seen crocs and they are a little scary with how fast they move! BUT that baby croc was so stinking cute. It looked like it was so happy to be laying on that log! ❤

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    1. Yeah they can move really fast if they want to. I think the crocs we saw was a bit lazy maybe because of the weather being a little cold for the crocs (plenty warm for us) so they moved slowly.

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      3. I had a really special time there, finished an important essay while camping 🙂
        Great memories, but Lichfield NP is also good, smaller and closer to Darwin for those who don’t have time.

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      4. Lichtfield is nice as well – but something completely different. I think it is a shame if you make it all the way to Darwin and then don’t go to Kakadu. Fortunately I had lots of time – five days in Kakadu first time and then just 3 second time around.

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      8. ah ok. It is just my impression most Australians don’t travel their own country until they retire 🙂 they go to Europe and all the Europeans go travelling in Australia.

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  10. Hi,
    I know this is a bit late, but I wanted to thank you for visiting my site I appreciated your interest and I hope you enjoyed the snapshot of my months cruise over to Canada and back to the UK.
    I like your site I found it interesting and informative, I like the photos.

    Liked by 1 person

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