Outback

-A big place with a big story -- Outback Australia.

The Kimberley region in the northwest of the country is the size of California, yet only 40,000 humans live here among some of Australia's most beautiful and deadly wildlife.

-This is beautiful country.

This is untouched country.

-This is an amazing sight.

It's incredibly early.

I've never seen anything like this, though.

-Fire.

-Across the Kimberley, rangers, traditional owners, scientists, and passionate volunteers... -Tough bugger, aren't you?

-...work together under extreme conditions in a strange kind of paradise.

It's a frontier existence, and it takes a tough hide to survive.

-You go against nature, and nature will give you a hell of a hiding.

-True story, isn't it?

[ Both laugh ] -In this episode... -Good to go, mate.

Let's get bombing.

-...we set the landscape on fire, meet the wildlife being given a second chance... -Hey, good boy.

Well done for rescuing him.

-...trace the footsteps of dinosaurs... -Some of the biggest animals to ever have existed, right here on the Kimberley coast.

-...and discover the land's hidden secrets... -Let's see what the country give us tonight, eh?

-Yeah.

-...in this place we call Outback.

[ Animal calling ] -Australia's Outback is a hot, dusty red-earth desert and a whole lot more besides.

[ Bird calling ] It's an expanse of extremes... [ Thunder crashes ] ...where the rhythms of life change from boom to bust.

[ Thunder rumbling ] Flood is as much a part of the landscape here as drought.

[ Birds calling ] In the Kimberley region in the northwest of the country, the wet season is blasting the land with one final deluge.

[ Thunder crashes ] It's the last good soaking the land will get for the next 8 months, and the locals are lapping it up.

[ Indistinct conversations ] -Go, go, go!

-In the town of Wyndham, there's nothing like a game of mud footy to bring folk together for a bit of good clean fun.

-Give it to me.

Come on.

Go, go.

[ Indistinct conversations ] -As the rains recede, life starts moving.

The saltwater crocodiles are the world's largest land predator.

And yet they start life at a mere 11 inches.

[ Baby crocodile chirps ] Nests are built over the wet season high on riverbanks.

At 2 months, the young leave the nest to fend for themselves, and just 1% will survive.

The toughest test for a saltwater crocodile is staking out territory, and sometimes they find themselves on the coastline where Australians love to holiday.

They're brave swimmers in these parts, playing watery roulette with some of the biggest jaws on the planet -- resident tiger sharks and saltwater crocs.

-Oh, geez.

Bit of mud on the ramp, John.

-Yeah.

Yeah.

It's... -Honest John and Steve have been fishing these waters for 40 years.

-Wind's a bit fresh, isn't it?

-Yeah.

-And there's nothing they don't know about croc behavior.

-Crocodile tracks up there, looks like marks.

-Yeah.

-Anyone who swims in these waters is asking for it because, I mean, it's not as if you don't know that -- Of course you know that -- -If you don't want to go fishing with crocs, don't go fishing in the north of Australia You know?

It's that simple, isn't it?

-Well, you can talk.

You swam a net across one day, and you didn't get bitten, but... -Yeah.

-Yeah.

He did.

Haven't done it again, though, have you?

Right?

-No.

-Well, there you go.

That's how you learn.

-Local rangers work hard to ensure crocs and humans stay out of each other's way, which means Matt Byers has the cumbersome job of relocating crocs that get too close for comfort.

-We've had a problem crocodile in Wyndham that we're trying to deal with now.

-At the Wyndham jetty, a 12-foot male has taken to following fishing boats.

[ Crocodile growls ] Crocs have been known to jump aboard.

The rangers set a floating steel trap.

-So the trap door here, that's how it opens with that simple lever, rope right through to the other end of the trap where the bait is, and then if the croc, pulls on it, it just pulls this lever and drops the door, simple as that.

-Last year, a woman's arm was ripped off by a croc.

This year, the rangers are taking no chances.

But it's not just reptiles on the move across the Kimberley.

The red kangaroo is taking full advantage of the breeding season.

Female roos can delay the development of their young until conditions are good.

At this time of year, joeys start peeking from pouches.

If food is still plentiful, at about 8 months of age, the joey will be forced to leave the pouch to make way for a sibling.

But this seasonal boom means more roos are on the move.

Plus, more tourists on the road equals accidents.

-Come on, bubba.

Come on.

You come on out.

Come on.

-Jan Martin, a wildlife carer based in Broome is there to help the little survivors.

-Hey, bubba.

[ Clicking tongue ] -For 24 years, Jan has taken in orphaned and injured animals, from kangaroos and wallabies to the odd brolga chick.

But one of her charges isn't coping too well.

This little fellow is Paddy.

He's an 8-month-old euro, halfway in size between a kangaroo and a wallaby.

A driver killed Paddy's mum, but saved the tiny joey in her pouch.

-He's a bit of a sulk.

As soon as someone starts to bully him or play-fight, he just runs and goes in his bag, and he won't get out.

-Snuggling down into a bag reminds Paddy of the pouch he started life in.

He's not keen on the outside world.

-He's euro, but he hasn't got any of his kind here, so consequently, he's not very social, and of course some of them here don't accept him either.

He just doesn't do the normal sparring.

Even the little tiny ones can intimidate him, so he really needs to go and be with his own kind.

-Even the lure of breakfast isn't enough to coax him out.

Paddy can't be released into the wild for another 18 months.

-I feel sorry for him.

He needs to interact.

He needs to have friends.

Come on, sweet pea.

In you go.

-Paddy has a bit of a trek to do to reach his mates.

-It's okay, bubba.

-He'll be flying 620 miles across the Kimberley to the town of Kununurra where there's another wildlife carer with a mob of young euros.

-Bye-bye, mate.

-Hello?

-Yeah.

I've got a kangaroo, 10 kilos, going straight to Kununurra.

-Copy, Ren.

Can I have someone at gate seven to check in the kangaroo, please?

-Copy that.

-For most travelers through the Outback, tough road trips are the only way to go.

Everything is remote.

The Dampier Peninsula, just north of Broome, is only accessible via 120 miles of red dirt.

Not too many people brave the journey, and that's just how Albert Wiggan likes it.

Albert is an indigenous ranger based at Beagle Bay.

-This is beautiful country.

This is untouched country.

You can't find country like this other places of the world.

In today's world where everything is under the threat of being destroyed, here we have something that hasn't been touched.

-Indigenous Australians believe the country was formed in the Dreamtime, and its laws are alive today.

For Albert, this law demands he care for his country and the spirits of his ancestors.

-When I see the red-tailed cockatoo, I will call him... [Speaks native language] It just automatically makes me think of this country.

This is where they live.

You know?

This is where they give birth to their babies.

Every morning and every afternoon, you'll see them, and you'll hear them fly over, you know, and we say that's our old people.

You know?

That's our old people there.

That's spirit bird flying over.

You know?

That's a really strong connection to this country.

-Albert works with the Nyul Nyul Rangers to protect this land, using traditional knowledge and modern technology.

They're hoping to track down one of Australia's most endangered and elusive marsupials -- the bilby.

-We started looking, and there's bilby tracks everywhere.

They're extremely hard to find.

They don't generally come out until about 1:00, 2:00 in the morning, and so there's a degree of skill in just finding them.

-But they want to see more than just tracks.

Tonight, they'll do surveillance on the burrow and discover they're not the only ones with a special interest here.

-We hit the jackpot.

[ Jet engine roaring ] -On the air strip in Kununurra, a special visitor is arriving.

Mandy Watson and her granddaughter are picking up Paddy, the orphaned joey.

He's being sent from Broome to join Mandy and her thriving roo mob.

-I first started looking after kangaroos about 13 years ago.

My husband and I had been away for a week and was on our way home, and he hit a red kangaroo, and she had a little joey, so I took her to the vet, got her checked, and she was all good, and they gave me some milk.

Yeah.

That was my first one.

-Paddy is rescue number 584.

-[ Laughs ] Bit heavy.

Oh, he's a bit smelly, eh?

[ Chuckles ] -After 2 hours of nerve-wracking travel, Paddy stinks.

-It's smelly.

All right?

Oh, good boy.

Good boy, Paddy.

All right, nana?

-Yeah.

-I know.

He's a bit smelly, eh?

A bit hot.

You'll be all right.

Hey, bubba.

Come on, then.

Come on.

Meet all the other bubbas.

Good boy.

Hey, babies, only Mum.

-There's a constant demand for Mandy's sanctuary.

Today, she has 40 resident roos.

-My little darlings.

You getting hungry?

Good babies.

-Paddy's fellow orphans are a motley crew of wallaroos, wallabies, and red kangaroos, all contentedly tucked up in Mandy's makeshift pouches.

Somewhere amongst them is another euro.

-There you go.

Slowly does it, Paddy.

Hey, good boy.

Kaysha, come here, darling.

-They need to be lot with others that's the same species as them, so Kaysha in here, she's a euro, as well.

Kaysha, come here, sweetheart.

Come say "hello."

You all right, Paddy?

You have a sniff around.

It's really important for them to socialize.

Like, I've had some in before that carers have had, and they might have had one on its own for a long time.

They bring it in when it's really big, and they won't share food.

They just fight.

They just don't know how to socialize, so it's so important they do it at a young age, so this is a good age.

-Paddy can learn the tricks he needs to one day live successfully in the wild.

This is the most interest he's taken in another roo since he lost his mum.

Male euros are solitary in the wild, but by loosing his mum too early, Paddy is missing his one important social bond.

It's going to take him time and courage to build new connections.

[ Phone Ringing ] -Hello, my love.

-Hey.

-Only one.

-They just found it?

No.

No.

It's not.

Bring it down.

Yep.

No worries, Chrissy.

All right.

Bye.

-Bye.

-Bye.

We have a new baby.

Got a little joey, so I don't know it's a wallaby or what, but, yeah.

They're going to bring it down now.

[ Chuckles ] I've usually got roughly about 40 kangaroos.

I could go a month without getting any in, and then you can have a week, and you might get one a day or two in one day.

Oh, sweetheart.

Oh, he's a little euro.

-Is that what he is?

-Yeah.

-Aw.

-Aw.

-Oh, look, look, look.

-Hey.

-Hey, bubba.

-Hey, good boy.

Aw.

-Needs a feed, hey?

-Yeah.

He'll be hungry.

Hey, you're a very lucky boy.

Well done for rescuing him.

-Yeah.

-Hey, little darling.

-How old?

-Probably about 6 months.

Hey, let's start getting him food.

Oh, you want to go into my pouch.

-Yeah.

Down you go.

Look at this.

-Go on in.

-Aw.

Look.

Look.

Look.

-Have a good look.

He's gone again.

-Go in pouchy.

-Gone in your pouch.

-Yeah.

-Well, I'll be getting up in the night, feeding you, little man.

Yes.

Aw.

Well done.

Thank you.

You got a name for him?

What do you reckon we can call him?

-Kingley.

-Kingsley?

-Kingsley.

Right-o.

-Kingsley.

Okay, then.

Kingsley it is.

Thank you.

-Awesome.

We'll leave you to it.

-Thanks, darling.

-All right.

We'll be in touch.

Thanks, Mandy.

Right-o.

Let me get you a feed.

Aw, sweetheart.

-Kingsley will need to be bottle-fed every 4 hours.

-I can hardly -- Get in that one.

That's it.

Good boy.

-There are months of sleepless nights ahead for these strange new bedfellows.

-Wow.

All right.

How are you inside, hey?

[ Animals calling ] -Albert and the Nyul Nyul Rangers are also preparing for a long night.

They're setting up camera traps to reveal one of Australia's most elusive creatures.

-All right, boys.

Let's go.

-Also known as the rabbit bandicoot, the bilby is very rarely seen.

-We always knew bilbies were around, but I guess out of sight, out of mind.

[ Indistinct conversation ] We did not understand how good the bilby situation was here until we made a strong effort to look, and, yeah.

We hit the jackpot.

I've been one of the very few people lucky enough, you know, to find bilbies.

As an indigenous person, it's always country working with you.

You know?

If you talk to country, country responds.

Let's see what country give us tonight, eh?

-Yeah.

-That's a good job anyway.

Let's go.

[ Bird calls ] -The bilbies only emerge from their burrow when the moon is high.

Shuffling like little rocking horses, the bilby follows a familiar foraging route, noting any unusual changes.

[ Bilby sniffing ] By tucking into juicy grubs, bilbies don't need to drink water, getting all their moisture from insects and fruit.

[ Bilby continues sniffing ] The pouch opens backwards, so young don't get showered in sand as Mum burrows.

[ Insects chirping ] Spotting a bilby is a rare thing indeed.

[ Animals calling ] -Yeah.

-First light, the rangers are back to see what happened overnight.

-Let's see if we got anything.

-There are bilby tracks everywhere... -Tracks and... -...but other tracks, too.

-He looks like a pretty healthy bilby, this fellow.

-Looks like a male, eh -Feeding around.

There we go.

What else is on -- Hey, that's a cat.

See that?

-Oh, that's not good, man.

-It's a feral cat.

It's a good size, too.

-That's not good at all.

Yeah.

We're going to have to set a trap here, I reckon.

-Since European colonization, Australia has lost 29 species of mammal.

All but one of these have been hunted to extinction by feral predators.

-That's a cat track.

You can see.

-The cat's arrival in the Dampier Peninsula is relatively recent, and it's making its mark.

-We hate the cats.

We hate feral cats because they're just so nasty.

-We'll put it under this broken branch here?

-Yeah.

-They kill all of our birds.

You know, they kill all our lizards, mammals, you know, our small mice, our bandicoots, our possum.

-Just do the... -The reason why we don't like cats is because they kill for fun.

-Good.

-Perfect.

-So if they kill a baby bilby, it'll just be as a training exercise on how to prey and how to stalk a defenseless animal, and it won't actually be killing a baby bilby because it's food.

-They're a nightmare.

-Nyul Nyul Rangers aren't alone in the fight to save Australia's marsupials.

It's happening across great swathes of the Outback.

-Good to go, mate.

Let's get bombing.

-Okay.

-At Mornington Wildlife Sanctuary, one of the world's biggest and most ambitious nature reserves, managing native species means flying regular missions over the land.

[ Capsule hissing ] [ Fire crackling ] Crew Toby and pilot Nick drop fire bombs, creating a patchwork burn across the land.

-All right.

I'll tip back over, and we'll run back down that side.

Just go straight over for now.

[ Helicopter blades whirring ] -By creating small fires in the wet season, they're preventing big fires later in the year.

-Most people would assume that there's not a very good habitat there, or there's not many animals, but the fact is that it's full with small mammals and reptiles and, like, birds seeking refuge, like, everywhere.

You just don't realize it.

-By burning now, they are not just preventing large wildfires later in the year, but maintaining cover and food for native animals by helping plant seed and flower.

-Traditionally, the indigenous mob would walk around and start fires in areas where they saw that it would be beneficial.

This whole landscape would have been covered with people living all over it, and so it was managed by burning patches.

All right, Captain.

Home we go.

No worries.

-As the sun sets on Mornington, the chopper goes quiet.

The workers relax, and the fires die out.

Their day's work is done.

[ Indistinct conversation ] But for most of the wildlife... the day is just beginning.

[ Animals calling ] This is Australia's biggest predatory marsupial, the quoll.

It may not have the stature of a lion or tiger, but it's a gutsy little beast.

He'll put everything he's got into a feverish hunt to mate.

When he finds a female, mating sessions can go for a full day.

Once his sex-crazed romp is over, he'll literally die of exhaustion.

But for now, the focus is food, and tonight, there's a tantalizing smell in the air.

Even the wildest quoll can't resist fresh peanut butter.

[ Metal clanks ] -Got one, Laura.

-At Mornington Wildlife Sanctuary, ecologists Laura and Melissa check to see who's visited their traps.

-Oh, feisty little one, eh?

-Come on.

Haven't had him resting enough.

-If they can save the quoll population here, the species will have a greater chance of survival.

-They've actually disappeared across most of their range in Northern Australia, and they're only found in these really rocky habitats like we have here at Mornington.

-So we're just checking for a microchip to see if he's one that we've caught before, but he's not.

He's a new one.

-That's exciting.

-Yeah.

-All right, buddy.

You look like you're ready to head off.

Ow.

Ow.

Ow.

-True to their reputation as feisty creatures... -And I've, ow, been bitten twice by quoll.

-...the quoll takes a little bit of Laura with him, giving her not one... -Ow.

Ow.

Ow.

-...but three bites before he flees.

-Lis, can you get those jaws off me?

-There you go.

-Okay.

-Oh, God.

[ Both laugh ] -Yeah.

Quoll damage.

He might come back looking for me later.

Oh, God.

-The geology of Northwestern Australia is so ancient, much of it predates life on this planet.

Standing alone in the expansive wilderness, the domes of Purnululu are over 350 million years old.

Bands of black lichen and orange silica create stripes like a cluster of painted beehives.

Further to the south, a limestone range stabs at the sky, mimicking the ruins of an ancient civilization.

But these pillars were created by something primeval.

They were once part of a prehistoric reef system, buried beneath a tropical sea, now pockmarked by fossils of Devonian sea life.

It's easy to imagine the tide has only just receded.

But today, the closest ocean is 120 miles away, and the tide is on the move.

At this narrow gorge, the water surges with such force, it creates a horizontal waterfall.

The Kimberley coast experiences one of the world's biggest tides.

As much as 30 vertical feet of water can be sucked back to sea in just 6 hours.

On the Dampier Peninsula, just north of Broome, the retreating tide exposes a grand intertidal zone.

The disappearing water reveals a thundering past we find so hard to imagine, etched for all to see.

This is the dinosaur highway.

-Well, at first glance, this just looks like another rock platform, but in actual fact, this is part of a 130-million-year-old landscape that's been fossilized as it was back in the age of dinosaurs, and all these undulations and depressions and things are all things that have been created by heaps of dinosaurs.

[ Dog barks ] -Paleontologist Steve Salisbury and his team are literally walking in the footsteps of dinosaurs.

-This is a huge sauropod track, one of the biggest dinosaur tracks in the whole world, roughly 1.7 meters long, so you've got huge animals traversing these sort of sand bars and things, and there's another one.

This may be related.

We're not sure, but it's in the same size range.

This is another really big hind-foot track, possibly a different animal.

You start to realize that they're all over the place.

[ Dinosaurs calling ] -It's thought a huge layer of silt came down in flood waters to this peninsula.

Dinosaurs wandered along it, and the mud quickly hardened.

The area was covered in sand, preserving the structure, and the rest is history.

-The footprints tell you a lot about the types of dinosaurs that were here, probably some of the biggest animals to ever have existed, right here on the Kimberley coast.

So from here, with a track of that size, we know that the hip must have been about 6 meters up, so somewhere, like, way up there, so this is a huge leg, and then you think about this.

The other one, the body, the neck is way down there.

The tail is over there.

It's enormous, you know, and it's just made this huge mess as it's walked through this sand bar.

It's really spectacular.

-But chasing dinosaurs was never meant to be easy.

Steve and his crew are in a dance with the incoming tide.

-We had this brilliant idea.

We thought we could swim with dinosaurs, and we thought we'd just snorkel around and find tracks, but the current is so strong, and there's so much sediment in the water.

You just kind of get washed away.

You can't see anything.

-They've had to come up with more innovative ways to beat the tides... -Landing gear raising.

-...by going up instead of down.

-How high do you want to be?

Using technology that we've got available to us now, like the drones, I've been able to reconstruct track surfaces in 3-D.

It's a good way for us to be able to capture what's there but then analyze it, you know, peace and quiet and taking our time in the lab and not worried about, you know, our stuff getting washed away and sharks and crocodiles and all the rest of it.

We're probably identified upward 20 different types of tracks.

-Yeah.

It's good.

-They're also creating three-dimensional images of the trackways.

It's all building a picture of what went on here during that wild fortnight 130 million years ago.

-We might see evidence of herding behavior.

A lot of the sauropod tracks, which are definitely the most abundant here, often seem to be lined up as if animals were traveling in groups.

And when the tide goes down... -But the tracks are being covered by the incoming tide.

-...man, gone.

-The team will have to wait for the next low tide before they can reach the Holy Grail of dinosaur tracks made by Australia's answer to T. rex.

[ Dinosaur roars ] [ Birds chirping ] Dawn breaks across Outback Australia.

It's the first time orphaned joey Kingsley has woken anywhere but inside his mum's pouch.

-Aw, sweetheart, sorry.

Going to have a bottle?

Hey, good boy.

You hungry?

-Wildlife carer Mandy Watson is doing everything possible to offer the next best thing.

-Hey, good boy.

Nice.

You're getting used to this teat, hey?

Bit different, eh?

You're getting the hang of it now.

He's doing really well.

We had a feed at 1: 00 this morning.

He's just getting used to having a silicon teat, lot harder than Mum's, but he's getting there, so, yeah.

He kept me awake a little bit through the night, fidgeting around and licking me, but yeah.

I probably got about 4 hours sleep, I think, out of 6.

I don't mind.

I always do it with the little ones, just to settle them in to start with, so that, you know, after losing their mums, it gives them a bit of comfort.

Yeah.

He's definitely a survivor.

-There are no sleep-ins or days off for Mandy.

Kiss.

Good girl.

Everyone needs a feed, like Tengo, the imported sun parakeet.

-There you are, Tengo.

Is it nice?

Yeah?

Good girl.

This is Emma Lou.

[ Tengo screeches ] Oh, shush.

Emma Lou came from Emma Gorge out of El Questro.

She's a sugar glider.

Her mum had thrown her out of the nest.

Like, she just wouldn't keep her, and the ranger found her on a pandanus branch.

She had to be fed every 2 hours for about 4 months, lived in a little drawstring pouch down my top, but yeah.

Because she's a community animal, you can't put her back in the wild because the rest will kill her, so I've just had to keep her.

They live for about 15 years, so yeah, so she's 8 now.

Morning, babies.

-Mandy also checks on the other new arrival... -Hello.

-...Paddy, who's big enough to have spent his first night with the other roos.

-Oh, good boy, Paddy, in a bed.

Hello, Malik.

Good girl.

You want a bottle?

Yay, Paddy.

Good boy.

First bottle, well done, darling.

Aw, that's a good sign.

Well, he's doing so well.

He's settled in perfectly.

Yep.

He's not stressed.

He's accepted me, which is a major thing.

That's really important.

Yes.

I know, and I love you, too.

Yes.

You're beautiful.

-Despite appearances, Paddy is still a wild animal.

After a year or so, he'll be weaned off Mandy's care and released with Kaysha and even Kingsley into a national park.

Early morning on the Dampier Peninsula and the dinosaur team moves in as the tide recedes.

They step straight into the toehold of a theropod.

So this is one of the biggest theropod tracks on the peninsula.

We've only found a few examples of this type of track, so it looks like quite a rare dinosaur within the fauna that was here.

-This patch of rock was a thoroughfare for theropods, a family of bipedal dinosaurs which included the lofty Tyrannosaurus rex.

For the traditional custodians of this land, these footprints weren't made by dinosaurs at all.

They're the marks of Marala -- Emu Man.

-He looked something like an emu but a giant emu, walking this country before human beings.

He left these footprints, and that's one sign that he's been there, one sign, and there's another sign.

He's up in the Milky Way, and in the Milky Way, we call Milky Way "ewara."

He's in the ewara here and now, the emu.

-Indigenous Australians have used story-telling to curate and preserve history over thousands of years.

-That's pretty good.

-Steve and the team are using fast-setting silicon.

-These big depressions, they fill up with water when the tide comes in.

What that does is slowly begins to erode them.

With time, these will just sort of fade away into the surf and the sand, so we might as well get a good record of them now while we can.

-Over 5 years, they have defied tides to map miles of dinosaur trackways.

-I kind of envisage this as, like, a Cretaceous Serengeti.

If you flew over the Serengeti plains today, you'd probably see huge herds of wildebeests and zebra and the odd lion.

That's what this was like, but it was dinosaurs.

[ Dinosaur roars ] -Yet creatures with ancestral links to these dinosaurs still inhabit this coast.

-We now know from a string of amazing fossils that have emerged in the last 20 years that birds are descended from dinosaurs.

-They live on above the very footprints of their ancestors, surveying the landscape with those reptilian-like eyes.

Like dinosaurs, osprey inhabit every continent, bar Antarctica.

Spectacular hunters, they live almost exclusively on fish.

With two 10-day-old chicks, this pair will need to double their daily catch up to five fish a day to feed all four of them, but there is a pecking order.

The smallest chick only gets its siblings scraps.

[ Chick chirping ] When the meal is done, all waste is artfully ejected.

No self-respecting osprey fouls its own nest.

But they're not perfect youngsters.

They fight incessantly.

The parents won't intervene.

Both chicks need to prove they can survive.

Like so many babies in the Kimberley, the odds are stacked against them.

Back in the Eastern Kimberley, there's another living reminder of dinosaurs.

A 12-foot-long saltwater croc that's been stalking fishing boats near the Wyndham jetty has fallen for the trap set by ranger Matt.

-It's a big animal.

You can see its head.

It's about the right size to be the problem crocodile.

That's for sure, well and truly over the 3-meter mark.

So what we'll do is try and snout-rope it to pull it out and put it in the vessel.

All right.

There's his head in.

An animal this size is well and truly capable of taking a human, any size human, but this particular one, we've been getting reports saying that that's been following quite closely behind boats, and it's been going up onto the boat ramp itself, so it's just sort of getting to that stage where it's a significant risk where we've got to deal with it.

[ Crocodile hisses ] -Matt needs to secure the world's most powerful jaws.

A big male salty like this one can out-chomp a great white shark.

Once a cable tie forces the jaws closed, the croc is disarmed.

-Spot-on there, I'm happy with that.

Probably what we'll do now is effectively get the croc onto the boat, so it's secure, so what we need to do is run this rope out the end of the trap and through to the boat, and then we can pull the animal in.

Could be interesting.

-Now it's the sheer weight of the animal the rangers are fighting.

-Well, he didn't have much fight in him at the start of the exercise, but he's certainly got it now.

It's commonly called the death roll.

It's a move that they do when they're taking prey, but also is a defensive move.

-They have to get 800 pounds of croc onboard without falling in the drink themselves.

-You definitely got to respect them.

They have a lot of power.

All right.

I'll get you to jump on and help peel him back.

-Ready?

-Yep.

Ready?

One, two, three.

Go.

Steady.

-Since croc hunting was banned 40 years ago, the population has gone from near extinct to abundant, which means more heavy lifting for rangers.

-This back one is purely to cover the eyes, which calms the animal down considerably.

-Happy?

-Happy.

You happy?

On your count.

-One, two, three.

-It's a feat of will for two men to get one of the largest living reptiles on deck.

-One, two, three.

[ Both grunting ] -All right.

That's a big animal.

-The croc will travel south to the area's only reptile park in Broome, a grueling 12-hour overnight drive.

-I reckon if we give him Valium now, then when you have to unload, get him off of... -The local vet, who's used to dealing with Australian wildlife, meets them en route.

-So what we're going to do is we're going to give him some Valium, relaxes his brain as well as his muscles, so helps him not be so stressed.

Little brave mate, good on you.

Well, I've done 25 years in the Kimberley, so we've been privileged enough to treat a few crocodiles, and in fact, I've treated a Komodo dragon that used to be at the croc farm here and that, so we've been very privileged to treat some of these big, beautiful creatures.

They're magnificent souls.

-News of the great croc's capture travels fast.

-The big one from the port?

[ Indistinct conversations ] -These old souls hold a special place in the hearts of the locals.

-I seen the crocodile when he's a baby.

He used to come up, right up to us, you know, but we couldn't pet him, you know, like wildlife and not like a pussycat or a dog, but at least you can chuck him the leftovers.

Yeah.

We've seen it grow, grow, grow, grow.

Yeah, and that's him there, dear old thing.

I love them.

Yeah.

I'll never forget him.

-The Wyndham croc has a long trip ahead, but once that's behind him, he'll live out his days as a stud in the croc park.

Life could be worse.

[ Birds chirping ] -I certainly respect them.

-Might have jumped on top of one once.

Whoa.

Hey, that's how we used to catch them in the old days.

The old croc handlers, you'd just drift down the creek at night -- Eerie, it was -- with the spotlight.

Sneak up, paddle up beside him and take a big breath, and then you just grab him, grab him around the nose, and then you'd stick your fingers in his nostrils there on top of his snout, reel him in as far as you could and hang on for dear life.

-The Australian Outback, full of tall tales.

Next time on "Outback," it's the dry season, so there's cattle to muster, and Kimberley's best cowboys hit the dust.

-Too old for this.

Yeah.

-Off the coast, humans and whales have a close encounter.

-Pretty much like a steam train.

It'll just rip you straight up off the bottom.

-And Mandy and her roos go bush.

-586 roos we've released now, and it doesn't get any easier.

[ Crying ] -This program is available on Blu-ray and DVD.

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