Wetland Cruise at Corroboree Billabong

I thought it was about time that I posted about Darwin again as it’s been a while and I keep getting distracted by my slow cooker!

A few weeks ago the Aussie had some friends visit us in Darwin. We had a really lovely weekend and it was nice to get to know his friends as well as getting to show them around Darwin and also visit some places me and the Aussie haven’t visited before.

We did the usual visiting Mindil Beach and had dinner out in Darwin but decided on the Saturday they were here to take a trip to Corroboree Billabong and try one of the Wetland Cruises. Corroboree is about an hour and a half from Darwin and a couple of hours from Kakadu. The billabong is part of the Mary River, river system and so is of course full of crocs!

We’ve done and enjoyed the jumping croc tours that are run all over this part of the Northern Territory (and I will blog about them one day I promise!) but this tour promised to be a bit more because it focuses on all of the wildlife in and around the billabong.

We opted for the lunchtime tour which starts at 12.45pm and comes with lunch. We were taken out on the tour by a lady called Amy and who was just fantastic. She loves crocodiles and is studying them at uni whilst also working on the tours and she just knows so much information about them it was fantastic. She knew who all of the crocodiles were and most importantly she really appreciates their wild animals and does not want to disturb them anymore than necessary.

It was also great because whilst the billabong is very popular for fishing, the cruise has areas where only they go so you get to see almost unspoilt areas whilst hearing tales of the crocodiles and birds all around.

We were lucky to see both salt water crocs and freshwater crocodiles and Amy was so excited each time it was like she was seeing them for the first time! It was very cool to see the freshwater crocs in the wild because you can really see the difference just in size as well as the colourings. It was fascinating (above is a saltwater and below is a freshwater crocodile they both live in the billabong).

Whilst the crocodiles are a large part of the tour there were also so many opportunities to see the different kinds of birds around the billabong. We saw my favourite birds which are called Comb Crested Jacanas – I just love the way they strut/run across the leaves!

We were also lucky to see a black necked stork/jabiru catching and eating a snake (its in its mouth in the picture below) and a Great Egret catching a fish although I didn’t manage to take any decent photos of that one.

There were Wandering Whistling Ducks, Brolgas, Great Egrets and Darters all around and we got to spend lots of time watching them as they just went about their business.

Our lunch was really tasty and there was so much food they really take care of you as well. Amy stopped the boat in a spot where there were lots of birds so we could do some bird watching as well as croc spotting.

Overall we enjoyed this trip immensely. It is a trip we would definitely do again and we really want to try the sunset trips as well because the billabong looks stunning during the day so you can only imagine what it would be like during the say. If you are in Darwin you should definitely try this trip (and if you visit me in the Aussie I’m sure you’ll get to go give it a try too!).