The Last Crocodile Hunter

by Bob Irwin

  I was thirty years old with three young kids, a thriving business and a house. I had ambitiously worked three hundrerd and sixty-five days straight in order to pay off the mortgage. In the evenings, I was playing professional badminton; my competitive approach had won me the title of Victorian state champion.

  I had all the notches on my belt that a man of my age was supposed to have. I’d done everything by the book. I’d followed the grain. But the truth was that life in the city had grown to be something I no longer felt a passion for. I was working hard, providing for my family, but something was greatly amiss. While we were reaping the rewards of our hard work, inside I didn’t feel rich at all. In fact, I felt empty, as though I had wound up on the wrong path, having chosen practicality over what truly made me tick. But that’s just what you did. In those days you didn’t do what you loved, you worked hard to make a living.

  I worked tirelessly around the clock, knee-deep in mud in the relentless Melbourne weather, and as a result I spent little time with my young family. I knew these were valuable years that you never get back, no matter how much I might try to make up for it later in life. It was time, I thought, for a radical change. I couldn’t have gone another day without making a decision. For too long, the safe path I’d trodden had worn me down.

  Lyn was shocked when she returned home to the unfamiliar sight of her husband lying motionless on the kitchen floor. She asked what had happened and I told her everything, including my desire to give it all away. ‘I’ve had enough,’ I said. ‘I’ve reached the point where I absolutely despise it. If I continue this kind of work, it’s quite simple: it’s going to be a very short life.’

  Without much hesitation, Lyn said, ‘Okay then, let’s do it. Let’s start your reptile park. If you have the will to do it, then we’ll all go, the whole family.’

  So it was on the kitchen floor of our inner-city Melbourne home that I made a really clear, finite decision: a promise to myself that I wasn’t going to lead a life I no longer felt any passion for. I decided then and there, with Lyn’s reassuring backing, that I’d give my long-held dream of opening a reptile park my best shot, despite not having the slightest bit of experience in running a zoological facility. I knew I could always go back to plumbing, but I hoped like hell I’d never have to. Up until this point Lyn and I had fashioned a very safe existence, but everything from here on was going to be flying by the seat of our pants.

  I got sick of sitting on the fence. We just knew that we wanted to get involved with wildlife, and so we did it. It was time for us to chase a dream we really wanted, rather than doing what was required to make ends meet. There was more to life than following the herd. Queensland, here come the Irwins.

  1

  A father figure

  Most people would be surprised to know that I started out as a plumber. An ambition I had from a young age was to be just like the man I most admired, my stepfather Les. I only knew him as Dad. I can still remember being an enthralled little boy as I watched him work in his blacksmith shed, my eyes as wide as dinner plates. He was a man of few words and we had very few frank conversations, Dad and I, but I’ll always remember the day he gave me a rare piece of resounding fatherly advice: ‘Son, as you get older and you go through life, never expect any reward unless you work hard for it . . . and always be nice to your mother.’

  My biological father died in a prisoner-of-war camp in Burma along with my uncle when I was just four years old, leaving my widowed mother to care for my older brother Ron and me during the hard times following World War II. I have no recollection of my dad, and wasn’t aware back then about the adversity our mother would have faced in simply making ends meet despite her broken heart. As a child, you rarely consider the wellbeing of those who selflessly bring you into the world.

  But in hindsight our humble abode was a stark example of just how tough times were: our home was basic, with a dirt floor in the kitchen and very few material things. We never had the luxury of keeping pets; they would have been just another hungry mouth Mum couldn’t afford to feed. As young boys, our job was to make sure that the hessian sides of the Coolgardie safe were always damp to keep the food inside cold; this was well before the days of refrigeration. We took on many of the physical jobs around the home, in place of the man of the house. But none of this mattered to us kids. Money stuff didn’t cross our minds so long as we could get outdoors and find some fun. We improvised and relished in our childhood adventures.

  It must have been difficult for Mum to raise two boys on her own, particularly livewires like us. Ron and I were only two years apart, and we fought like cats and dogs. We always seemed to be bluing or getting into mischief. If we weren’t getting the cane or a lashing of the leather belt in the classroom, Mum used to whack us with wooden coathangers at home to pull us into line. When the wooden ones broke on our backsides, she changed to wire ones. They didn’t break, they just bent a little and left a lasting sting. We never received that kind of punishment unless we deserved it, and it never did us any harm.

  Sometime later, Mum married Les and we moved into his much more comfortable home. I don’t know how they met: from as early as I can recall he was always in the picture. Les quickly became a strong male influence for Ron and me: a sturdy, incredibly tall man who was nevertheless remarkably tender, a true gentle giant. He was always Dad to me. When he spoke, Ron and I always listened, captivated.

  No matter how much I used to trail him around, getting under his feet, he was endlessly patient with me. I used to adore watching him at work in his smithy making picks and shovels, crowbars and horseshoes. When he’d get steel splinters in his big calloused hands, I’d spend hours removing them with a pair of tweezers. To my eyes, each hand seemed the size of a leg of ham as I diligently worked away at them. I liked to think I could help him and he knew it would keep me busy.

  He had a fit, muscular physique without an ounce of fat on him. He worked too hard for that. Dad was all about physical work. Like the good teacher he was, he always had the time to stop and show me how to do things properly. In Dad’s book you never did things by halves: it was a hundred per cent or nothing at all. ‘If you take the time to do it properly the first time, then you’ll save time later.’ I grew up emulating his vigour and appetite for hard work.

  We lived in a tiny country town called The Basin, situated at the foothills of the enchanting Dandenong Ranges in Victoria. Our house was on Mountain Highway, a winding narrow road that saw little traffic. Vehicles were so infrequent that Ron and I would use the middle of the road as our cricket pitch because it was perfectly flat. If a vehicle happened to approach, no one ever seemed to mind waiting for us to move the wickets to let them pass, then we’d pick up our game where we’d left off.

  For a restless boy like me, school was completely uninteresting, and I struggled to learn anything from a book. The Basin Primary School consisted of one room and felt just like a prison to me—and I found my stern teacher to be boring and uninspiring. Trapped at my desk, I couldn’t wait for the hours to pass so I could race home and get back down to the creek to see what creatures I could discover.

  Being just about the smallest kid in the district, I used to cop a fair bit of bullying. As the years went by, I realised I had to either learn how to fight or run very fast. Being the size I was, I mostly did running. Whenever I had the chance I’d lose myself in the bush, engrossed in my own untroubled world. I felt at ease in my own company. I thought humans were a peculiar breed. But with animals, on the other hand, I’d grasped from a very young age that you always received honesty, you always knew where you stood. If you mucked up, they bit you. But if you respected their space, they’d respect you too. It was as simple as that in the animal world and a lot more complicated when it came to humans. The more I observed things out in the bush, the more insatiable my appetite grew to know more. The bush became my school of life. When the school bell sounded, I’d run out of the front gates as fast as my little legs could carry me, back to my sa
nctuary.

  Our house was adjacent to a vast open paddock, filled with blackberry bushes and butting up against miles and miles of dense bush that sloped down to a flowing creek. The bush was full of all kinds of creepy crawlies that fascinated me no end. It was an idyllic place for a curious boy to grow up. It became my habitat, where I felt a sense of belonging. The day would turn to night before I’d run home to my worried mother, after eking out every last moment of light, always pushing to stay out there later and later.

  It was the start of my fascination with the environment. I’d follow every critter to see where it lived: in the hollows, in the mud, below the surface of the water. I’d come home so excited because I’d found something different: a frog, an eel, or a little lizard. ‘Mum, look at this!’ I’d exclaim. And every time her horrified reaction would be exactly the same: ‘Yeah, okay, son, but now you can go right back where you came from and let that go again.’ Which I’d do, relishing in the excuse that gave me to return to my favourite place.

  One particular day, Mum wanted to bake her famous blackberry pie, so I headed out in my lace-up workboots to pick blackberries; I knew secret spots flush with berries that no one else had found. But unbeknown to me, as I stood picking berries I had parked myself in the middle of a raging bull ants’ nest. None of them bit me until there were dozens filling each boot. Suddenly I received hundreds of agonising bites from the irate ants, and I instantly dropped the blackberries and ran home screaming. Thankfully Dad was home. He saw me wailing as I came running down the driveway, tears streaming down my swollen red face. He immediately picked me up and put my feet in the laundry trough with a solution to help reduce the swelling. My feet were so inflamed that he couldn’t get my boots off, so he cut them down both sides with a leather knife. Mum rubbed a soothing mixture on the bites. I was in agony. And it was the end of my boots too. But none of it stopped me going back to the same spot the next day, barefoot, to curiously observe those ants move about their bustling city for hours.

  I was one of those fortunate kids in the world in that I was able to grow up in a place where I could virtually do what I liked when it came to exploring. I gloried in the bush for years and years. And then the time came when I had to grow up, earn myself a living and put the environment thing to bed for a while.

  The closest high school was Box Hill Technical College, a trade school a long way from where we lived. In my first year of plumbing theory, learning again from a book, I failed miserably. But in later years, when I got to spend more time working hands-on in the field, I passed with honours. I had decided on a plumbing apprenticeship so that I could help Dad with his business.

  I eventually landed an apprenticeship with a great bloke named Fred Moore. My final year of the apprenticeship was in Melbourne, which was even further to travel from The Basin. I bought a pushbike to ride between home and work; it took a couple of hours each way. If I timed it well enough of a morning, a friend of mine travelling to work in his car would wait for me at the bottom of the hill to tow me behind his car on my pushbike. When I finished my apprenticeship, I finally realised my dream of working for Dad as a plumber. That was a gratifying day.

  Dad eventually had a career change to building septic tanks. I continued to work with him in this new endeavour because I loved the physical activity and the test that came working on the hillsides of the Dandenong Ranges. We’d build tanks in some unbelievably challenging places, where we’d have to mix the cement on the top of a hill, and send it down to the bottom via a series of corrugated-iron chutes, wheelbarrowing the cement between one chute and the next. I used to love digging the septic tank holes. I wanted to prove to Dad that I could dig those holes as quickly as him, and in the end I could, despite the fact that he was double my size.

  To make a bit of extra money, I started digging graves for the local council. It was just me digging down to the bottom of a six-foot hole, digging with a pick and a shovel. There were no machines to do it in those days. I used to challenge myself to dig each hole faster than the last.

  As we grew from boys to men, there came a time when alcohol became part of the scene. I’d get together with the boys from the local area. Living in a small country town, about the only place to go was the milk bar. I’d watch as they’d drink and drink, and then the fights would break out. If there was another group of teenagers from a different area it would end up a total riot. I associated with these guys for a fair while before I realised that alcohol was so much a part of this scene that it had become unenjoyable. I tried a beer once but vomited almost immediately. And so drinking never became something I chose to do. I decided that I always wanted to be aware of what I was doing, would never be in a situation where I didn’t have my wits about me. I thought there were better things to do with my time than wake up with a sore head or a split lip. I don’t have any regrets about living my life without alcohol; I don’t feel as though I’ve missed out on anything there. I’ve managed to get through life without it. But I won’t lie; I missed the explorations of our childhoods in the bush, once everyone had grown up and their interests had turned elsewhere.

  ***

  Our childhood family holidays were spent at Mum and Dad’s holiday home in the seaside town of Port Lonsdale. The long expanses of uninhabited sandy beaches were more wonderlands for me to endlessly explore. As kids we’d play around the old lighthouse on the headland and trawl the beaches for whatever washed up with the tide. As I got older I learnt to spearfish and became quite good at fishing in the surf. I eventually built my own surf ski because I wanted to go further out into the ocean to spear bigger fish. But I very quickly learnt not to tie my catch to a long line from my belt so that they were trailing twenty metres away when I was underwater. Because quite often I’d feel an unnerving tug on my line and the next thing I’d know a shark would have got hold of my fish and would be staring me down for more. I wouldn’t say that I particularly enjoyed the company of sharks in such close proximity.

  At Port Lonsdale we’d often get together with a lot of other families staying at a caravan park close by. Us kids would stay out all hours of the night playing beach cricket and football. On one of these holidays I met Lynette, a pretty brunette who liked to fish. She was my kind of girl, and I was instantly smitten. It wasn’t just about her looks but the kind of stuff that made her tick that I prized the most and she was really into everything that I enjoyed. For years, I’d look forward to being reunited with her on our holidays by the sea. We were only young teenagers when we met, and as we got older we’d often return there as a group without our parents. As we grew, our relationship grew too. We became childhood sweethearts and were married when Lyn was just eighteen and I was nineteen. I had proposed to her a fair few times before she finally accepted. Lyn was pregnant at our wedding, when it wasn’t all that accepted to have a baby out of wedlock. But I knew that I was going to marry that girl one way or another, and I couldn’t wait to start a life with her. I had always wanted to be young enough to grow up with my children, and to keep up with them when they were young adults.

  Lyn’s parents, Nanna and Pa, were wonderful people and really good about the whole thing. Like my own mum and dad, they couldn’t do enough to support us as we started our young lives together. Lyn was living with her parents when we got married, and then she moved in with my mum and dad before we set up on a block of land Dad owned in a town called Boronia. Our first home on that block could only be described as a glorified shed. I was determined to make a good living and promised Lyn that we’d own a home of our own one day and that I wouldn’t stop until we did. It was hard to start with, but we managed to get by. When you have children young, it increases all of your responsibilities, but it teaches you a lot about yourself too.

  Lyn had a lot of trouble with the birth. She was in hospital for three weeks prior to having the baby. I used to drive down to the hospital in the city every night after work to visit her, concerned about her and our unborn child. But soon we had a beautiful healthy bab
y girl: Joy Lesley Irwin, named after Lyn’s older sister who had passed away as a young child. She was our firstborn, and I thought that she was exquisite indeed. I was fascinated by her, and she was cute as a button, even if I say so myself. I’d take her everywhere with me, pushing her along the Yarra River in her all-terrain stroller, crossing cow paddocks. We’d go off camping as a young family, just the three of us, sleeping in the back of my work truck.

  Those early years with Joy were a huge learning curve for me. Lyn was a trained mothercraft nurse so she had a hell of a head start on me as a parent; she knew all about babies and what they required. She was an exceptional mum. But kids don’t come with a manual and much of the time no one can say exactly what your child needs, so it was often about finding our way and learning as we went and I enjoyed that part immensely.

  By then I was busy being the provider for our young family, trying to make ends meet. I would have been happy with just one child at that stage, but Lyn wouldn’t have a bar of that. Two years after Joy was born, our lives profoundly changed again when our son arrived in a hurry on Lyn’s twentieth birthday in 1962. We were at home, and Lyn kept saying to me, ‘I’m not ready to have him yet!’ But after the trouble she’d had with Joy, I wasn’t willing to risk it. ‘I’m taking you to the hospital right now,’ I insisted, as I virtually forced her into my work ute.

  I couldn’t get to Upper Ferntree Gully Hospital fast enough. That drive was the longest fifteen minutes of my life. Her waters had already broken at home and I wouldn’t have coped very well if she’d given birth in my ute. I must have broken some speed limits that day, I don’t mind admitting it. When I arrived, the nurse wheeled Lyn into the delivery room and I went and sat outside. I was trying to pull myself together; I felt helplessly concerned for Lyn and the baby. But there was no way I was going to watch the carnage going on inside that delivery room; I would’ve been a mess because I’m not good with blood.