Crocs, Coconuts & A Commune

Shot in Far North Queensland, we trekked with limited supplies and a super 8 camera into Cedar bay. Home of the infamous Cedar Bay Raid of 1976. Were the song Bacon busters continues the lore as Albert (Boing Boing) is the last man standing, living were the Pig Shooters and Fruitarians once resided.

Into Cedar Bay, the Hard Way

The jungle didn’t welcome us — we carved our way in. Six hours felt like days. Every step fought back: vines pulling at our packs, roots slick with rot, leeches finding their way through our socks. My camera bag dug into my shoulders until the straps began to tear, so I carried it by the top handle to relieve the pressure, switching arms every few minutes. The air was thick enough to drink, and the light barely made it through the canopy. Our shirts stayed wet, not from rain, from the weight of the day itself. Time stopped meaning anything. Every turn looked the same — the same repeating pattern of green and rock — until the forest finally spat us out onto a stretch of coast so long and empty it felt like the edge of the world.

About thirty minutes into the hike, a spiked vine tore through one of our water bladders. We watched half our supply bleed into the dirt before we could even react. By the time the jungle spat us out onto the coast, we’d run out of water. We knew we would, and Albert planned to take us inland to resupply tomorrow. For now, coconuts. They were everywhere — mockingly abundant. And if you’ve ever actually tried to open one, you know that “cracking coconuts” is something only people who’ve never done it say with confidence.

We slept in an old pig hunter’s shelter, patched a few more palm fronds over the roof, cracked cans of tuna and rice for dinner. For the first time in my life I felt completely isolated. Knowing we were hours from the nearest phone signal to call for help.

I took comfort knowing Albert’s dog was with us — if anything decided to wander in, we’d get a warning bark before teeth or claws arrived. Now he lay curled by the fire, eyes half open, the kind of tired that seeps thru to the bone. Watching him fade, I felt the same waves crashing over us all.

We lay shoulder to shoulder in the dirt, shirts for pillows, smoke and salt thick in the dense air. I closed my eyes, but sleep didn’t come. Every sound grew sharper, the dark pressing closer — the forest came alive behind them.

It felt like the rainforest had slipped beneath my skin — alive somewhere in the back of my mind, whispering through dreams I didn’t ask for.
The jungle was no longer outside. It had found a way in, for a moment I wasn’t lying there — I was part of it.

The jungle was no longer outside. It had moved through me — loud and endless. Every sound, every breath, every pulse its own voice. A ancient choir screaming through a dream I didn’t ask for. It was too much, and somehow exactly enough. For a moment I wasn’t me at all; I was part of it.

Morning came slow, as if the jungle were letting go of me. The night before still hummed in my bones, but everything felt different — emptied out, like the world had taken a deep breath.

Rubbing dirt into my eyes, cracking another coconut for breakfast — we set out with our trusty Canon 1218 Super 8 camera to fetch water and get some filming done along the way. It must have been a few hours before we reached a flowing stream at least 45 minutes inland — in a serene estuary — Cold, clean, ancient. It was time to film.

Walking down the stream, we found a spear. What a great prop. Albert led us downstream. It was crystal-clear, ankle-deep water running through a narrow corridor of jungle. Levi and I stopped our progression to film Albert “fishing” as we moved. As we journeyed on, the creek bed began to widen and deepen. At first it was little pockets — maybe a few meters at a time — and a few more leg hairs felt the spring of the unpolluted water.

But as we ventured further, the jovial conversation faded without acknowledgement. The creek bed doubled in width, and with each step we sank a little more. Water crept up our thighs. My shirt dipped under and clung to my stomach, soaking through in a single breath. Albert wasn’t “fishing” anymore — the spear settled in his hands like something remembered, not learned. Instinct had stepped in.

No one spoke. Albert and Levi ahead turned, and we all gave each other an unmistakable look. It was time to get out of the water.

We waded a few meters more to a tree fallen over the river. The sound of the ocean began to call for us.

Climbing onto decaying mighty tree. We looked ahead…

There it lay — jet-black, a relic shaped by time and pure survival, massive in a way your brain refuses at first, because nothing that ancient and built for killing should still exist.

The biggest saltwater crocodile I will ever see in my life lifted its head and stared back at us — eyes like polished fossils, dead and knowing. Then it slid into the water we’d just climbed out of, silent as a bad thought.

Instinct did the talking. No panic, no yelling — just that sick, electric calm when your body realises it's meat in someone else’s world. We inched over the slick branches of the fallen tree, stepping like idiots trying not to wake a god. Wrong side of the bank, nowhere smart to run, hearts punching but faces still.

For the moment, we were alive. Safe enough to pretend the jungle had let us go. To pretend we were brave men.

We hadn’t seen the last of that prehistoric bastard…..