Holding crocs, licking ants and racing toads

Koala Bear Tuesday and Wednesday of this week were spent on Magnetic Island. It’s another Captain Cook named place, so called because his compass stopped working as he sailed past. We took a bus from Airlie Beach to Townsville, another four hours up the coast, then a ferry to Magnetic, or ‘Maggie’ as the locals call it.

On Wednesday we visited Koala Village, a small operation only open to the public for the past six weeks. It’s a nature tour starting with a guided walk around a couple of crocodile pens. They had a four-year-old saltwater croc and a few freshwaters plodding about looking pretty hard. Our guide was your typical brim-hat, sand coloured shirt, shorts and boots Aussie you’d expect to be giving you facts on dangerous wild animals. And he certainly knew his stuff. A Koala called Squirt was ready to greet us in the next pen along. As we were a small gruop we were aloud inside the pen and I got some good close-ups and a video. We had our photos taken with a lizard from the lizard enclosure, a Python wrapped around our necks then a photo holding their saltwater croc. We were told to use a firm grip and not to hold it up too high incase the tail whipped round in our faces. He was quite a weighty little beggar.

The second half of our tour was a walk in the bush. Our guide for this was an aboriginal descendant called Rebecca. She walked ahead along the trail stomping her feet to ward off any snakes. We saw a load of stuff and were told about how natural things were used by the indiginous people, like certain leaves as sandpaper and tree bark used to smoke fish. Underneath an old shack there was a spider - an orb-weaving spider - the size of a man’s outstretched hand. Rececca stopped and pointed out a green ant’s nest. She told me to pick one up by its head and to lick its green lower abdomen. Naturally I was a bit sceptical at first. Licking ant’s arses isn’t known to be one of my more popular pastimes. But I gave it a go and soon saw the reason to the exercise. The ant secretes a substance as a defense mechanism when distressed which is safe but very sour to the taste, like biting in to an unripe crab apple. It was a worthy attraction for 8 seeing as the photos holding all the creatures were no extra charge and you can use your own camera. Most places usually rip you off where that’s concerned.

At night time we had the privilege of taking part int he weekly Toad Race back at our hostel. Run by Australia’s answer to John McCririck, you bid for a toad to take part in one of three ‘races’. If your toad reaches the edge of the circle chalked into the pavement first you win $40. Me and Steve had $9 on Paddy O’Reilly, the toad with a green ribbon tied around it’s waist. Out of 10 toads we came ninth. Which was really annoying because, had we finished last, we would’ve won two tshirts as a booby prize. And the difference between ninth and last place was a nose.

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Posted: May 19th, 2006 at 3:19 pm | In: Australia, Magnetic Island | Comment