Hello from Cooktown!

OK, we're not in Cooktown. None of us are. Baby Jane is back. Yes, they left early!

I really should download some of her photos in here, and I will once I figure out how to use her photo program, which - since I'm such a computer ninny - could take a while.

Meanwhile, why is she back early?

No, it wasn't the crocodiles although ...

"It was rather disconcerting having so many of them around all the time and you can see them looking at you everywhere. And they're just so big and so many people have already been killed. And there are all these little ones everyplace and when you come close to take a photo they all go "peep, peep, peep" and you know they're calling for help from Some Great Mother nearby. Oh, and have you ever had one of them come at you? No? Apparently they can get on their hind legs and run at you, but I only saw how they stretch up their legs and run very fast. And it's really something when they swim straight for you, and it's really weird how they swim, with really rigid upper bodies and bottom half wiggling and the tails looking like a snake.

And they've become so numerous and so huge even the locals who are used to them are getting rattled. Like, the house where we were staying had a track from the veranda down into the Endeavour River and, well, it was just so pretty and since it was so hot I found it really hard not to go in for a swim but I saw the crocodile slide right there and decided not to go near the water because, well, that man was taken last week, and they still haven't found the crocodile although they're still hunting for it, and it's very disconcerting, especially since we could see his fingermarks from where he tried to get away and you could see where he'd been dragged and it was all very sad. And our boat was only a 14 footer and this croc is supposed to be over 18 feet long and massive, but we only saw a 7 footer but it was right behind our friend's boat when he was pulling out his crab pots."

"Is that why you decided to leave Cooktown?"

"Oh no. We left because our hostess came down with swine flu!"