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Massive Croc Stands Off Against Truck On Flooded Northern Territory Road

Each year, dozens of cars are washed into the river attempting to drive on Cahill Crossing.
A man was killed by a crocodile at Cahill Crossing earlier this year.
Getty Images/Lonely Planet Images
A man was killed by a crocodile at Cahill Crossing earlier this year.

A Northern Territory driver has faced off against a huge crocodile at Cahill's Crossing, one of the most notorious roads in Australia.

Tommy Watkins told NT News that he was heading past the crossing when he saw the crocodile blocking the road.

"He was a big fella, he would have been close to four metres -- the biggest one here," Watkins said.

"We'd been watching him for a while. The croc was there, laying with its mouth open to get itself a feed -- just fishing."

Watkins said that the spectacle attracted a crowd, too.

"It's the most tourists I've seen there at high tide, there'd be 50 or 60 people who saw the truck crossing."

Cahill Crossing is on East Alligator River, 250 kilometres from Darwin in the crocodile heartland of Australia.

Rangers found that there were 120 crocs in the six-kilometre length of river to the south of the crossing. And in the NT's Top End region, there are around 100,000 crocs all up.

The NT News reported last year that there are usually more than 20 crocodiles next to the crossing at any moment.

Cahill Crossing has built a reputation as one of the most dangerous roads in Australia. Each year, dozens of cars are washed into the river that often floods the road. In January this year, a 47-year-old man was killed by a 3.5-metre croc after wading across the road on foot.

The most well-known attack occured in 1987, when 40-year-old Kerry McLoughlin was decapitated by a crocodile that sprung at him from the water while he was fishing.

From 1971 to 2016 there have been 70 crocodile attacks in the NT, of which 22 have been fatal.

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