Queensland has pulled the rug from under Darwin with yet another catchy tourist slogan. Remember how Queensland successfully boasted about being beautiful one day and perfect the next-despite being ankle deep in cane toads ? Well, with all the publicity given to one solitary crocodile recently swimming about Magnetic Island, off Townsville, the lovely resort, under threat by developers with beer bellies and white shoes, now calls itself CROCNETIC .
This surely shows up how devoid of imagination we are here in the Territory when, if you believe the local paper, we are knee deep in saurians and have been so since Garden of Eden times . Yet nobody here in the NT has thought fit to devise a catchy slogan or suggested renaming Darwin to cash in on our superfluity of crocs. Just being known as plain old Darwin conveys the impression of a geriatric bloke who cuddles monkeys or that it is some kind of human zoo, not far from the truth. As annoying advertising denizens would say, brand-wise , Darwin is not very sexy .
Just imagine what changing the name of Darwin to CROCVILLE would do for the tourist industry. Country music unfortunates and jazz fiends would be attracted by the name CROC-A-BILLY BAYOU. The CROC POT would appeal to overseas gourmets wanting to sink their teeth into Down Under wildlife. And for all the huffing and puffing about Baz Luhrmann’s film , Australia, being used to promote Northern Territory tourism, it did not feature one crocodile in the script. What a blunder! As Napoleon would say, who is responsible for this faux pas, Josephine ?
The crocodile which inspired Magnetic Island was an unfortunate creature which had been transported by the Environment Protection Authority 1000kms from Cape York Peninsula and relocated near Townsville. Feeling lonely, it liked the look of Magnetic Island, so headed there and petrified locals and tourists. After a few weeks , it was captured and, sadly, died. CSI New York are looking into the suspicious death and are anxious to interview a woman seen running away in lizard skin shoes. The Queensland government has coughed up $40,000 compensation for the island to help it get over the croc attack , a clear indication of how close the next election will be in Bananaland .
During the island pursuit of the crocodile , the arty editor of the online newspaper, The Magnetic Times, George Hirst, even composed a lengthy poem along the lines of Banjo Paterson’s The Man From Snowy River. It was headed The Croc from EPA and opened with …There were many in the water / when the word was passed around / that the croc from EPA had got away / Wired to a satellite / they thought it could be found / But the croc had headed north for Cockle Bay.
Apparently editors of the NT News have never been poetically inclined otherwise they would surely have penned a ream of rollicking ditties like editor Hirst’s Nobel Prize effort . Some grumpy, unimaginative spin doctors and uncouth readers of this post will undoubtedly describe it ( and others ) as a Crock of S***.
This surely shows up how devoid of imagination we are here in the Territory when, if you believe the local paper, we are knee deep in saurians and have been so since Garden of Eden times . Yet nobody here in the NT has thought fit to devise a catchy slogan or suggested renaming Darwin to cash in on our superfluity of crocs. Just being known as plain old Darwin conveys the impression of a geriatric bloke who cuddles monkeys or that it is some kind of human zoo, not far from the truth. As annoying advertising denizens would say, brand-wise , Darwin is not very sexy .
Just imagine what changing the name of Darwin to CROCVILLE would do for the tourist industry. Country music unfortunates and jazz fiends would be attracted by the name CROC-A-BILLY BAYOU. The CROC POT would appeal to overseas gourmets wanting to sink their teeth into Down Under wildlife. And for all the huffing and puffing about Baz Luhrmann’s film , Australia, being used to promote Northern Territory tourism, it did not feature one crocodile in the script. What a blunder! As Napoleon would say, who is responsible for this faux pas, Josephine ?
The crocodile which inspired Magnetic Island was an unfortunate creature which had been transported by the Environment Protection Authority 1000kms from Cape York Peninsula and relocated near Townsville. Feeling lonely, it liked the look of Magnetic Island, so headed there and petrified locals and tourists. After a few weeks , it was captured and, sadly, died. CSI New York are looking into the suspicious death and are anxious to interview a woman seen running away in lizard skin shoes. The Queensland government has coughed up $40,000 compensation for the island to help it get over the croc attack , a clear indication of how close the next election will be in Bananaland .
During the island pursuit of the crocodile , the arty editor of the online newspaper, The Magnetic Times, George Hirst, even composed a lengthy poem along the lines of Banjo Paterson’s The Man From Snowy River. It was headed The Croc from EPA and opened with …There were many in the water / when the word was passed around / that the croc from EPA had got away / Wired to a satellite / they thought it could be found / But the croc had headed north for Cockle Bay.
Apparently editors of the NT News have never been poetically inclined otherwise they would surely have penned a ream of rollicking ditties like editor Hirst’s Nobel Prize effort . Some grumpy, unimaginative spin doctors and uncouth readers of this post will undoubtedly describe it ( and others ) as a Crock of S***.
