Yellow Water Billabong, Kakadu, Northern Territory.

Mandy steers the shallow-bottomed skiff away from the jetty and out into the open streams of the Yellow Water. It’s just gone dawn. The world is waking up.

“This is my grandmother’s land,” she tells us. “My grandfathers made canoes from these trees.” You get the feeling she’s being metaphorical as well as literal. Mandy is a cruise guide. Her son is also a cruise guide. They run excursions through the expanse of Yellow Water, a land-locked billabong which has created a network of riverways and wetlands … basically it’s a BBC Wildlife Documentary made real.

Yellow Water is home to a bewildering array of wildlife. At this time of day, there’s a primeval feel to it.

The skiff slips through the silky water as the mist begins to lift from the river bank. Geese fly in formation overhead. The hot-pink waterlillys bob in the wake. Ahead, a dark trunk slips through the reeds and disappears. It’s a crocodile. The waters are full of crocodiles.

They float by, innocently enough all right. All googly eyes and that wonderful nobbly body-work (apparently the skin is all to do with sensors; a crocodile can detect the thrashing of feet in a water from a mile away...). They emerge and submerge without warning, and ripple away as long, dark shapes in the green water. But you wouldn’t want to get too close. We hear (later, safely on dry land) several stories which even when rid of their embellishment for tourists, still make the hairs of your neck prickle with anxiety. I swear I heard the tick-tock of Captain Hook’s clock that night.

We spot several large male salties, sized between four and five metres. They eat their prey whole, but privately. Crocodiles are not one of life’s natural sharers. When they jump and bite, the sound of the jaw-snap is palpable.

We’re told that for every crocodile you can see, there are up to 15 nearby, submerged, ready to fight for their piece of whatever a lucky croc up-top snaps up.

The crocodiles may think they are the star of the show, but the more benign inhabitants of Yellow Water deserve special attention: the snake-headed darter, comb-crested jacana, white-breasted sea eagle, little kingfisher, willie wagtail… the list goes on. The trees are full of birdlife. Herons stalk the water’s edge. Eagles swoop. The air is full of birdsong.

The water is full of fear. The air is full of song.

Song.

Darwin.

Art.