Call of the Wild - Sukau

Finally we made Sukau after dogging and pressing through the log jams in the river. I thought Hunter would possess some Canadian Lumber jack skills however he was a little reluctant to jump on a jam after hearing crocodiles inhabit the river.

Another boat Alice, who had entered the river at the same time as us ended up with a big log stuck across the front of their boat while they were away. We tried to move it until they came back without success.


The main objective of coming all the way up the river was to see the Asian Pigmy elephants of which officially only around 130 of still exist. The locals think real numbers are only 70. We took a local boat upstream as it looked as if Thyme might not fit under the power lines, passing the Croc that was waiting for Hunter to jump on a log jam.

We were not disappointed with the turn out. Our driver told us that the Palm oil plantation owners shoot the elephants to keep them from trampling around in their plantations. The female elephant on the right has a scar from a gunshot wound on her right cheek.





Our driver took us home via an Ox Bow lake that’s being slowly over taken by Hyacinth.

The next morning Amanda and I headed out early (early and Hunter don’t work well together) looking for monkeys, birds etc. We nosily passed a few unimpressed tourist boats before finding an old swing bridge made from canvas hose.


Hunter having completed his 2 weeks relatively unscathed, headed back to Sandakan to start his journey back to Toronto and us needing to renew our visa began the trip back down the river. The tide lets us out on the 8th.

By popular demand…

Murringingi – early November

Despite it being stinger season, in croc territory and having seen heaps of huge sharks – Si and Corrie thought it would be a good idea to get in the water and clean the props before heading further East. There’s a lawn growing on the side of our boat and who knows what else is under the hull. Si donned his full length thermals – top and bottom and thick wool socks before jumping in. I paced the decks on lookout with a speargun in hand. Luckily both boats were cleaned and the mad divers back aboard without mishap. It was another early morning departure as we still have a lot of miles to cover.

Mitchell River – crocs – early to mid September

Mitchell River was literally buzzing with crocs. Everywhere we turned there was one. Little baby’s from 30cms to big man eating ones. We were drift fishing at low tide one afternoon and had passed by some large boulders well over 2mtrs out of the water when Si pointed out the we had drifted right passed one thermoregulating on the warm rock. He must have slept through the tide and been waiting for the next high to get down.

We also nearly walked over some in the freshwater section of the river. These guys were also dozing in the sun – as was the really big guy who minded the dinghy for us!

We managed to get some shots for your viewing pleasure, risking life and limb – no just joking – these guys were as wary of us as we were of them - not that we tried pushing the friendship!

Boyd Bay

Having had enough of city life we motored down the coast to Boyd Bay to wait for some wind to carry us across the gulf. It seems the entire coast of Australia from Darwin to Brisbane is becalmed! We’ve now had about 10 days of no wind.

On our mine tour they mentioned that a deep water port for shipping out the Bauxite was pegged for development at Boyd Bay starting early next year. Luckily due to the economic downturn it looks like this may be postponed. Good thing too, as this bay is really special – a favourite of mine so far within the gulf.


The wildlife in Boyd Bay was overwhelming – fish surrounded the boat, turtles floated past, dolphins playing in the calm, dugongs, stingrays and shove noses, birds including sea eagles and egrets, bats playing on our rigging at night, pigs, cattle and crocs were around. We went for a 2 hour walk along the coastline and found many tracks in the sand – mainly pigs rooting around for whatever they could scavenge. We discovered turtle tracks leading up the beach to hole where they had laid eggs. Unfortunately all that was left was a few egg shells as the pigs had rudely pigged out.

With a bit of time on our hands, Si had the great idea of setting a pig trap as our contribution to saving the turtle nests. Sounded easy enough! The plan was to find a good sapling to bend over, peg it down, bait it with some food, an old fishing net from the shore underfoot roped to the sapling… and the pig was ours. Just like in the movies. Si scaled a cliff to lasoo a sapling but the sapling had the last laugh and Simon ended up with a bruised butt. Sore and sweaty and covered in sand we admitted defeat and returned to the boat.

I also had my first croc experience at Boyd Bay. Walking along the shore I rounded a small undulation in the sand to come face to face with a 2 metre croc 10 feet away from me. He was just as startled as I and turned to me with jaws wide to size me up. Luckily he decided I was to big to take down, turned and dived into the water and was about 200 metres away before I could even draw breath. I’ll definitely be treading more carefully along the shoreline now. I’m not sure what would have happened had it been a 4-6 metre croc???