Swimming with Crocodiles

[Geoff Cunningham]

Originally Posted by Joe Farah

Did you find any "Roughies"? You guys must have been in the Kimberly region right? If i could own a pair of any snake on the planet it would definately be rough-scaled pythons. Mmm Mmmm MMm how I would love to see one of those in the wild...

Before I answer that, a little background on the Rough-scaled python.

In the early eighties Dr. Richard Shine was looking through museum specimens and noticed what was labeled as a carpet python from the Kimberley’s. Upon further examination it became obvious that this was not a carpet python. Later I believe Dr Shine described this as an entirely new species of python. Morelia carinata.

During that time I was working at the Australian Reptile Park with John Weigel. John and I were interested in searching for Roughies and we formulated a plan to spend several weeks in the far northwest Kimberly in the hope of photographing the first live RSP. As I recall John and I took the bus to Derby WA [3-days] and then hitched a ride along the Gib river road to Drysdale River cattle station where we caught the once weekly mail plane to the remote Mitchell Falls airfield. We had enough provisions to last us 3 weeks of spotlighting, during the wet season of 1984. We spotlighted from dusk to dawn and spent the days either exploring and taking photo’s of the herps we found the previous night. When it became too hot to take photo’s we found caves to catch a nap in. We discovered a heap of interesting reptiles during that time but no Rough Scails. Next year Weigel and I went back with the same result, no RSP but still an adventure. Later JW would lead Syndeyherp society members in search of this elusive python. John’s idea was the more people [10 plus] looking the better the odds of finding one. This did not appeal to me much, lol.

I on the other hand decided to take time off my ARP duties and set off on my own. Later I was to meet an entustatic young American traveler/writer Will Chaffey. Together we formulated a plan to explore the Kimberly’s with the help of Dick Smith and Australian Geographic. You can read about our adventures in issue 26, 1992, PM me for a link that you can download the story. It wasn’t hard to convince young Will to go searching for this rare python in the incredibly remote area of the Prince Regent River Reserve [he must be nuts]. Not sure why I choose the PRRR over the type locality for M. carinata other then I hoped to add to the range of the species. As far as I know it is only found in close association with rainforest pockets, in a small area surrounding the Hunter River, just NW of Mitchell Plateau.

Sometime later after our story in the Australian Geographic John Weigel and his group found the first Rough Scaled Pythons and the rest is history. John has been doing great things with this species reproducing them every year. In fact given the known range is rather small there may be more in captivity then in the wild. Of course it remains to be seen if these rare snakes occur in the Prince Regent or other areas in the Kimberley that support Rainforest pockets. Time will tell.

Did we find one? No, but we had one hell of an adventure which is what I really wanted anyway! As for Will? he got a great story to write about.


You can read about it in “ Swimming with crocodiles. May 1st 2008

[Geoff Cunningham]

A couple pics from one of my adventures with JW






Photography by Adrian, copyright all rights reserved

[Corpsefire]

Great story Geoff! It is too bad you were not able to find Carinata. Rough Scale's certainly are amazing. If I remember correctly I heard a new island population of M. Carinata was recently discovered...

[Geoff Cunningham]

Originally Posted by Corpsefire

Great story Geoff! It is too bad you were not able to find Carinata. Rough Scale's certainly are amazing. If I remember correctly I heard a new island population of M. Carinata was recently discovered...

Thanks

Does not surprise me at all that they occur on offshore islands or other locals in the Kimberley. I'll have to ask JW about that.

[Geoff Cunningham]

The books out in Australia and NZ. I should have a few copies in a couple weeks when Will sends them over from his book tour.

[Geoff Cunningham]

Nice review!

Swimming with crocodiles
By Will Chaffey
More than just another account of a year spent in paradise, this is a real, modern day
adventure story reminiscent of the tales of Australia’s early explorers. “Its safe to say I
left the United States and arrived in Australia at the lowest point in my life,” mire’s the
extremely likable Will Chaffey, before detailing dissatisfaction of having completed high
school in the early 1990’s without receiving any university offers. He meets Geoff, a
swagie with an encyclopedic knowledge of Australia’s plants and animals, and the pair
decides to embark on an incredible journey.
Carrying only their food and survival items they attempt to be the first white men to walk
the length of the Prince Regent River from its source to its mouth, a remote area of the
Kimberley, planning to photograph and catalogue new species they find.
What follows is an exciting and sometimes frightening account of a trip undertaken by
two friends who share an enthusiasm for the Australian outback and a passion for its flora
and fauna, native traditions and customs. This is no walk in the park- the men nearly die
of thirst and starvation, are pushed to their physical limits and have an extraordinary
encounter after stumbling across a remote and sacred Aboriginal burial site, the
recounting of which had the hair standing up on the back of my neck. The pair endures
encounters with biting green ants, snakes, monster bulls and crocodiles as well as their
own fatigue and fear
Throughout it all, Chaffey remains in awe if the wonder of the natural world, “Geoff” and
I were as remote as either of us had ever been, soaked to the bone, hungry and happy.
Despite our crude habitation and meager fare, we felt like Caesars in this wilderness.”
But when they reach the mouth of the river, on the verge of starvation and desperation,
hoping to be picked up by a passing boat, their adventure is only just beginning.
Reviewed by the Sydney Morning Herald, Kate Datum. May 1 2008

[Geoff Cunningham]

If anyone is in Australia right now you might catch Will Chaffey at one his book signings. I just heard from him him as he's being interviewed by just about every radio station and newspaper.

I'll have copies after June 1st when Will returns to CA.

[Geoff Cunningham]

A couple pics of Will on his book tour and radio talk tour.

[Geoff Cunningham]

The book is to be published in the USA next year, around May.

[Geoff Cunningham]

Another review, look out for the book in the usa around May 09;

Book Review: Swimming with Crocodiles by Will Chaffey
1 of 2 10/8/08 6:47 AM
REVIEW
Book Review: Swimming with Crocodiles by Will
Chaffey
Written by Maggie Ball
Published July 15, 2008
Swimming with Crocodiles is an interesting hybrid: a coming of age story, mingled with travelogue and
Nat Geo-styled adventure tale. Eighteen year old Will Chaffey was rejected by a number of universities
after completing his High School diploma at the prestigious Milton school, and decided to take a trip
overseas to Australia. It was there he met Geoff Cunningham, adventurer, nomad, and herpetologist,
who took him along on a trip deep into the Kimberleys in Western Australia. It’s a good story, gripping
and thoughtful. Chaffey manages to successfully toe the line between providing the reader with a good
deal of information on the flora and fauna -- some of it magnificent -- of the area, and creating an
engaging plot with a deeper underlying theme.
With all the skills of a fiction writer, Chaffey presents a cast of interesting characters – students,
scientists and hippies, from Bill, the grad student biologist from Berkeley who led his team of trappers
and data collectors, to Peter, the South African farmer giving his land back to the forest. But the most
interesting character is Geoff, the remarkable herpetologist who convinces him to join in and split the
petrol for an exhibition into the remote Kimberly, ostensibly to find new reptile species, take
photographs, and become the first white men to walk the headwaters of the
Prince Regent River to the falls of the King Cascade. If they had succeeded
without a hitch, it would have been an interesting story, full of Geoff’s extensive
knowledge of the land and its inhabitants, particularly reptilian and of Chaffey's
observations and sometimes wide-eyed wonder.
But there was a hitch. After 40 days in the wilderness, they reached their
end-point – The King Cascade. Then they sit down to wait for a boat to come in
and collect them, but nothing comes. After 10 days of waiting, no boat arrives,
and they end up having to walk another 220 kms to get out. The adventure
becomes a life or death story where starvation is just around the corner,
exhaustion threatens to overtake them, and the pair almost end up as croc food.
What Chaffey discovers about himself and about the world he lives in during that close shave makes
for an exciting read.
page 1 | 2
Blogcritics is an online magazine, a community
of writers and readers from around the globe.
Publisher: Eric Olsen
page 2
Book Review: Swimming with Crocodiles by Will Chaffey
REVIEW
Book Review: Swimming with Crocodiles by Will
Chaffey
Written by Maggie Ball
Published July 15, 2008
page 1 | 2
Throughout the book, Chaffey punctuates his rich descriptions of the land he is discovering, with his
fears, his sense of the future, and his growing self-development. His sense of time and space changes,
and he begins to see, everywhere, the bigger context of his role in the world and of its fragility:
It occurred to me that if you did not spend two months in the wilderness in your youth, you
might never discover who you were: you might fundamenbtally never discover your true
self, stripped of all conditioning, ideology and belief. I was the child of professional
parents, who grew up in a suburb of Boston, and yet here I was, no more than an Earthling.
Nature was the final context, and everywhere it seemed that context was being destroyed.
This sense of both the fragility of nature, and the fragility of man within nature, becomes an underlying
theme that carries Swimming with Crocodiles (Picador Australia) beyond simply a travelogue. We begin
to identify with Chaffey as a character, and his development becomes meaningful, but we also put his
experience into our own context, and it therefore becomes meaningful to us. Not all of us will have to
reach into crocodile infested waters to retrieve a lost fishing rod – our only means of obtaining food,
and not all of us will come to the brink of starvation and death in an environment both beautiful and
unforgiving.
But most of us will experience things that will change us, force us to grow, and question what we knew
about ourselves. In this way, as readers, we can identify with Chaffey’s experience, and enjoy it as both
a story and as an informative foray into one of Australia’s most forbidding, and compelling landscapes.
page 1 | 2
Magdalena Ball runs The Compulsive Reader. She is the author of Sleep Before
Evening, The Art of Assessment, and Quark Soup.
Comments
Blogcritics is an online magazine, a community
of writers and readers from around the globe.
Publisher: Eric Olsen