Dinosauric!

I think, apart from the “Big Five” (Rhino, Elephant, Cape buffalo, Leopard, and Lion) of Africa, one of the most impressive animals on that continent is the crocodile. Phrases that come to mind when I think about crocs (the reptile, not the shoes) are: prehistorically efficient, iconically reptilian, realistically dinosauric… not sure if that last one was even a word. Oh well. It’s a word now, and it fits doesn’t it? I mean crocodiles ARE so dinosauric, aren’t they? I can think of no better word to describe their aura of calm, scaly, cold, crafty, oldness. Ain’t they cool?

 

Crocs, they know they're cool. 

All of the croc pics in this post were taken by Clive, an employee at the park with a really sweet camera and a new friend of ours as of this year.

Apparently crocs were high on a lot of people’s bucket lists, because when we let the word out that we were taking a drive to the river to try and see some, everyone wanted to come! We ended up borrowing the science center’s game drive vehicle, which could probably seat up to 15. The more the merrier, right? I think so, especially with an awesome group like this!

 

 

Fun fact: in the game drive vehicles, the person or persons on the very back seat have the biggest gamble in trusting the driver’s ability to get them “There and Back Again,” because both the vehicle’s shocks and the park’s roads are bad.

 

And one big bump with a driver who’s more Hyde than Jekyll could find you, poor, unprepared backseat sitter, in a much closer experience with the animals than you signed up for (i.e. the truck will go up with the bump, and so will you, then the truck will come down to the road, and so will you… behind the truck… on the road… with a bump… in a slump…) I’ve been reading a lot of Dr. Seuss lately. Can you tell? Anyway, the reason I bring this up is because someone “CoughRyanCough!” almost sent Frederick, a grad student visiting the park from Sweden, flying.

Unfortunately, other than that lil’ anecdote there’s really not much of a story to this event. We trundled out there, saw some awesome crocodiles, and trundled back with cool pictures, which I will now share with you. Enjoy!

I feel charming! Oh, so charming! It's alarming how charming I feel!

(I dare you to click the link and then try and get that song out of your head.) 

 The river's not that wide, and hypothetically speaking, if I got a running start...

D'ya think he'll try a running start?

I love it when they do that. Meals on wheels, baby.

Eyebrows can also be used as great handholds for shoulder-riders.

He's gonna try a running start. Pass it along.
Hubert, get yer tail outta my face!

 Oh, and that lil' bird right in front there? He's about the same size as our blue heron. That guy behind him is a Goliath heron. Wikipedia gave me some stats to share: This is the world's largest heron. The height is 120–152 cm (47–60 in), the wingspan is 185–230 cm (73–91 in)

He's big, people, but not as big as the surprise we saw on the drive back to the lab!

These guys totally surprised us... and not in a bad way, thankfully. They were so quiet we almost drove right by them. Not sure who noticed them, but I'm glad they did, and I'm glad the elephants didn't mind us doing the tourist thing for a few minutes. Seeing these massive creatures out in the wild will never get old for me. What a great end to a fun trip!