Crocs in Cairns
Trip Start
Aug 12, 2010
1
67
135
Trip End
Sep 23, 2011
Where I stayed
Nomads Cairns Beach House
Cairns, Queensland, Australia
Saturday, January 22, 2011
After 12 hours waiting in Brisbane Airport (which is one of the worst airports we have ever been to) we have finally arrived in Cairns, Australia. We were supposed to stay in Cairns for 3 nights but as our dates were slightly mixed up (as fate would have it) we were only in Cairns for 2 nights. Our only full day in Cairns was spent in several travel agencies organising our forthcoming trips down the East Coast. This took a full 7 hours and Hollie managed to cut our initial quote for our 3 trips by $300 - sweet as!!!
Upon arrival in OZ we expected to find devastated areas due to the recent floods. However, everything appeared normal and there was no evidence of any flood damage in Cairns.
The next day we started our OZ Experience bus trip to Townsville. On our way we stopped at Innisvale to visit the Croc Farm. For only $18 we got to feed kangaroos, cuddle up to dingoes, see emus and hold and take pics of snakes and baby crocs. It is at this farm that crocs are purposely bred for commercial use. This may seem an unreasonable practice but due to the farming illegal poaching has diminished. This has resulted in croc numbers increasing from 30,000 in 2005 to 200,000 in 2010 just in Northern Queensland. The crocs are kept in isolation for the first few years to maintain temperatures and humidity and then killed and sold to companies such as Louis Vuitton, Armani and Versace. The price of Croc Belly leather sells for £15 per 1cm square, so a whole croc belly is worth an average of £10,000!!! Some of the larger crocs are kept for tourism purposes. These were the crocs we saw in action being hand fed by the park ranger. One Croc weighing 600kg and being 12 metres long!!
Love us x x x
