{"id":645966,"date":"2026-05-03T00:57:28","date_gmt":"2026-05-03T00:57:28","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/645966\/"},"modified":"2026-05-03T00:57:28","modified_gmt":"2026-05-03T00:57:28","slug":"seeing-kakadu-through-the-lens-of-crocodile-dundee","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/645966\/","title":{"rendered":"Seeing Kakadu through the lens of Crocodile Dundee"},"content":{"rendered":"

Kneeling ankle-deep in Girraween Lagoon on the outskirts of Darwin, I’m watching the activity on the bank.<\/p>\n

My mind begins to wander when a sudden movement breaks the surface, a flash of open jaws.<\/p>\n

I lurch backwards as the crocodile jolts forward, stopping abruptly before it slowly recedes back under the water level.<\/p>\n

My heart is racing; my colleagues are laughing.<\/p>\n

“Well, that’s answered the question if it’s real enough, Di’s just jumped out of her skin!” the director said.<\/p>\n

\"A<\/p>\n

Girraween Lagoon on the outskirts of Darwin. (ABC News: Pete Garnish\u00a0)<\/p>\n

It’s 1985 in the Top End and we’re filming Crocodile Dundee.<\/p>\n

Multi award-winning Australian cinematographer Russell Boyd and the crew are preparing to film the iconic croc attack scene where Mick Dundee saves Sue Charlton from the jaws of a 5-metre salty, albeit a mechanical one.<\/p>\n

\"Photo<\/p>\n

Dianne King (left) worked on the set of Crocodile Dundee. (Supplied: Dianne King)<\/p>\n

As Sue’s (Linda Kozlowski’s) stand-in, it was my job to block out her scenes while the crew got the camera, lights, and croc, rehearsed enough for her to walk in deliver her performance unimpeded with technical issues.<\/p>\n

As a Darwin girl wanting to learn filmmaking, it was an opportunity to be in the thick of it.<\/p>\n

\"Photo<\/p>\n

Dianne King in 1985. (Supplied: Dianne King)<\/p>\n

Mike Atkinson, a Darwin cinematographer working on the film, said security was paramount, with armed rangers on the lookout for crocs.<\/p>\n

“We used to go there at night with a powerful torch and look for eye shines, but that doesn’t mean that they’re not under the water, so you can’t be sure you know,” he said.<\/p>\n

“The first rule is: be very careful. We didn’t have drones in those days \u2026 so you had to get in close [on the crocodiles] \u2014 and sometimes it’s extremely dangerous but if you understand the animal’s movements and what it’s capable of and so forth you’re a lot safer, but it’s not foolproof.”<\/p>\n

\"Man<\/p>\n

Mike Atkinson says filming Crocodile Dundee was dangerous with crocodiles around. (Supplied: Mike Atkinson\u00a0)<\/p>\n

And it wasn’t just crocodiles.<\/p>\n

Atkinson helped location scout Craig Bolles find the iconic places for the film, one of which was Gunlom Falls in Kakadu National Park.<\/p>\n

This was where they filmed the camp scene with Mick cooking the goanna, his first kiss with Sue and swimming in the waterhole.<\/p>\n

“With the top shot of Linda and Paul swimming in the waterhole \u2014 I was on a rope hanging over the escarpment to get that shot,” Atkinson said.<\/p>\n

\"Front<\/p>\n

A Crocodile Dundee script from 1985. (ABC News: Pete Garnish\u00a0)<\/p>\n

The Dundee effect\u00a0<\/p>\n

Little did we realise that this film would break multiple box office records when it was launched in April 1986 and that the saltwater crocodile and the world heritage site of Kakadu would bring global travellers to the territory to this day.<\/p>\n

Crocodile Dundee’s global reach put Australia firmly on the international map.<\/p>\n

\"A<\/p>\n

Crocodile Dundee turned into Australia’s most succesful film of all time.<\/p>\n

Filming on the streets of New York for the first movie, when script supervisor Daphne Paris told curious passers-by she was from Australia, she was asked: “what language do you speak there?”<\/p>\n

Back there a few years later filming Crocodile Dundee 2, Daphne was asked the same question.<\/p>\n

This time when she replied, the response was a resounding “G’day mate!”<\/p>\n

\"Large<\/p>\n

Gunlom Falls in Kakadu National Park reopened in 2025 after several years closed to the public.\u00a0 (ABC News: Pete Garnish\u00a0)<\/p>\n

The “Dundee effect”, as it has been coined, brought Kakadu’s visitor numbers up to 300,000 annually in the late 1980s, with a threefold surge in overseas visitors over the that decade.<\/p>\n

Since then \u2014 aside from years affected by COVID-19 \u2014 the park has consistently seen visitor numbers between 160,000 to 200,000 annually, but international visitors have been on the decline.<\/p>\n

\"A<\/p>\n

Burrungkuy (Nourlangie) is a world-renowned rock art site. (ABC News: Pete Garnish\u00a0)<\/p>\n

Kakadu has long been on the UNESCO World Heritage list for both its spectacular environment and its cultural importance.<\/p>\n

Its ranking at number 14 in the New York Times’ 52 Places to Go in 2026 list has returned the park to the spotlight as a top tourist destination, and ensured the legacy of Crocodile Dundee remains embedded in the Top End.<\/p>\n

\"A<\/p>\n

Burrungkuy (Nourlangie) is a cultural highlight of Kakadu. (ABC News: Pete Garnish\u00a0)<\/p>\n

Kakadu Tourism spruiks a self-guided tour where fans can visit the iconic locations from the film.<\/p>\n

Even the film’s fictitious Never Never Safaris, run from the Walkabout Creek Pub by Mick and Wally, has a real-life spin off, with a tour company run by a father-daughter duo based in Jabiru.<\/p>\n

Owner Sean “Chizo” Chisholm says he watches the film once a month and he loves quoting it to tourists when showing them the film’s iconic locations, like the rock formation Ubirr.<\/p>\n

“We do a sunset tour out there, it’s when he’s [Mick] standing at the top there with Sue and pointed down and he said, ‘This is my back yard, and over there is the Never Never’.”<\/p>\n

\"Rocky\"<\/p>\n

Burrungkuy (Nourlangie) viewed from the Kunwarddewardde lookout. (ABC News: Pete Garnish\u00a0)<\/p>\n

But Chizo says what most people are interested in is Kakadu itself.<\/p>\n

“I think it’s the Aboriginal culture here you know, the wildlife, the flood plains, the birdlife\u2026<\/p>\n

“And the crocodiles.”<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Kneeling ankle-deep in Girraween Lagoon on the outskirts of Darwin, I’m watching the activity on the bank. My…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":645967,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[26],"tags":[64,63,174591,312572,312573,61163,116944,312574,128,338],"class_list":["post-645966","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-wildlife","tag-au","tag-australia","tag-crocodile-dundee","tag-crocodile-dundee-film","tag-crocodile-dundee-movie","tag-kakadu","tag-kakadu-national-park","tag-kakadu-tourism","tag-science","tag-wildlife"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/645966","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=645966"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/645966\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/645967"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=645966"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=645966"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=645966"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}