I fell out of a kayak in a crocodile-infested river
and why they call me stupid…but lucky
When I was 17 I left Canberra, the capital of Australia, and went to work as a laborer at the remote Daly River Mission in the Northern Territory — the Top End. The Mission was on the land of the Malak Malak people. It was as different from my life up till then as it could be. I grew up fast there, had a blast, discovered many ways to dance with death, and somehow lived to tell the tale!
The year before I got to the Mission, they had employed two other fine young gentlemen — absolute paragons who were good at everything I wasn’t — from ‘down south’. Anywhere that wasn’t in the Northern Territory, Australia’s Wild West at the time, was ‘down south’. They could shoot really well, work really well. They were good blokes, and their legend of goodness lived on after they left — no one found used condoms in their room. (I had other skills.)
The truly excellent thing about them, however, was that they had bought kayaks to use on the mighty Daly River, and because these were too hard to transport back home, had left them at the Mission.
I had been eyeing off the kayaks pretty well from day one. I had never used a kayak before, but how hard could it be, right? The river was in flood for the first couple of months I was there, dangerous and out of control, but it was also a giant playground, begging for me to explore.
I wasn’t stupid about it though. I waited until the Daly River stopped flooding and had dropped twenty meters, but was still flowing along quite nicely.
When it looked a lot less dangerous, but still with enough zing to make it interesting, I dragged one of the kayaks down the steep muddy bank of the river and decided to have my first attempt at kayaking.
Not just gently paddling on the still fast-running river, either, I wanted to paddle in rapids.
I had seen kayaking on the telly and it looked like fun. My memory beyond that was a bit vague, however. It did not strike me as being dangerous at all, just a laugh.
I never asked anyone about it. I thought because of my inexperience they might not let me take the kayak out. When I’d broached the topic in general conversation with the Mission hierarchy, a lot of chin grabbing and cigarette rolling had ensued — a sure sign of ‘Territory Man’ in emotional distress.
I thought I had progressed as an ‘outdoorsy’ type. They thought I was still a pasty middle-class white boy who didn’t know how to do shit. I’d show them!
So one Saturday afternoon, without asking anyone, I took one out and went to the river on my own.
The kayak slid down the bank easily. I climbed in and launched out on to the water without too much ado. A strong current hit me and paddling hard was essential to move against it, but I had been laboring for a while now and was actually quite strong. I headed upstream.
I have to say I was feeling quite cocky. I was out on the Daly River, kayaking and making not a bad fist of it, except for maybe a couple of tiny errors.
Firstly, and this is completely true, at the time I thought kayaking on rapids meant going up the rapids. Really, I did. It seemed more challenging. Surely it was too easy to just go down them?
Secondly, I forgot that ‘tidal’ means salt water and that in the Northern Territory, salt water means saltwater crocs, and saltwater crocs mean violent man-eating killing machines. Turns out those thin muddy slips along the bank were not places to land kayaks!
The Mission was a few kilometers on the sea side of a man-made crossing over the river. Aptly called The Crossing. From the coast to The Crossing, the Daly was tidal, and with laws in place protecting crocs, the river was teeming with them.
Only a complete tool (and I do not mean a Swiss Army knife) with no thought for his life would swim in the Daly River below the Crossing.
Of course, I was not swimming below the Crossing, I was in a kayak, happily kayaking along the top of the river, or I was until I saw a flurry of water around rocks and thought I would give kayaking up a rapid a go. I am actually that stupid.
I lined up the frothy white water and started paddling as fast as I could. I hit the rapid, the kayak immediately capsized, I fell out into the river, and, with the extra momentum from the rapids, the kayak started to float away, fairly quickly.
I still had a hold of the paddle, but I was watching this kayak, which was not mine, which I did not have permission to use, just piss off down the river toward the Arafura Sea. I had to get it back or I would be in big trouble. I started swimming after it. That’s when I became a complete tool.
I was wearing shorts and flip-flops (we call them thongs) and the flip-flops had come off and were floating away with the kayak. They were my only pair. I had to get them back, too.
So I swam after the kayak, and eventually, after a lot of splashing and swearing( you try swimming with a paddle), I caught up with it. The river was flowing fast but because the kayak had filled with water it had slowed down.
Even so, we had both traveled a fair way down the river by the time I was able to grab the end of it and one flip-flop. I gave up on the other one and started dragging the kayak toward the now unfamiliar bank.
I didn’t care. I was so relieved to catch up with the kayak. I knew the trouble I would get into for ‘stealing’ it in the first place and then losing the damn thing almost immediately.
As I started to maneuver the craft towards the bank, the other flip-flop bobbed tantalizingly close. I clutched at it and missed. I tried using the paddle to scoop it up. I was holding on to the kayak with one arm and trying to catch the flip-flop with the other, making a ruckus on the river.
It was then I heard shouting from the bank and turned to see a group of Aborigines waving and yelling at me.
I thought they were enjoying my improvised slapstick, and because I am a performer at heart, I started mucking around a bit, catching the flip-flop, holding it in the air, letting it go and finally holding it high in triumph on the end of the paddle. The mob on the bank went wild and I felt a small glow of accomplishment.
I dragged the kayak and paddle to the bank and climbed up onto land. But it turned out they weren’t applauding. They looked at me as if I was beyond stupid — from a special place where people had no brains.
One of the men told me about the camp dog that had been taken by a croc ten minutes before. Right where I’d been splashing in the river like a wounded animal, ripe for the barrel roll of death, grabbed by the leg and pulled under.
The Malak Malak weren’t laughing at my slapstick; they were desperately trying to save my life, while I mucked around in a crocodile-infested river rescuing my flip-flop.
Ironically enough, I suppose, if a croc had taken my leg off, I wouldn’t have needed the flip-flop anymore!
