Crocodile cuddling

If you're not from Australia you might not know that we have crocodiles in the tropical northern parts of the country; there's lots of them including the relatively harmless (if left alone) fresh water crocs and the deadly saltwater crocodiles that can live happily in fresh water estuaries and water bodies and also in the ocean. The latter...well, they hunt, catch and devour people from time to time and swimming in these waterways is not advisable. There's signage of course, but people are stupid and go in any way and...croc dinner is served.

The saltwater crocs grow to around seven metres in length (23 feet or so) and are efficient and calculating hunters and once they have you, well, there's rarely any coming back from an encounter like that, you're either dead or have less limbs than you had before or are so fucked up you wish you were dead.

Anyway, you might also be unaware that us Australians are taught from a very young age to cuddle crocodiles; that's right, we cuddle those deadly beasts all the time because why not...and we're fucken bonkers mostly.

And speaking of bonkers, recently my sister in law sent me the image in this post of my nephew @mrbonkers cuddling a crocodile.

Clearly this is a very young crocodile and its mouth is taped up, safety first and all, because my nephew is in the early stages of crocodile cuddling school but eventually he'll be cuddling seven metre crocodiles and if he's lucky get to bond closely with one and eventually ride the beasty to school each day. I know what you're thinking, where do they keep all those crocodiles, but don't worry, there's designated crocodile parking areas in schools here - it's really quite well managed and catered for.

On this particular day, my nephew managed to play with some other deadly Australian animals, like snakes, and he cuddled them too...it's legit, don't worry if they're venomous and a bite can kill within a painfully agonising hour or two, we cuddle them anyway! Why not right?

It's through deadly animal cuddling days like this one my nephew attended that Australian kids learn to respect the native animals and gain an appreciation of their place in nature and how to care for the environment that those animals call home, just like we call it home.

_{Disclaimer: Don't cuddle crocodiles and deadly snakes if you come to Australia, you're likely to die, although don't take my word on it, cuddle some and see how you go if you like.}