The ‘Snake Man’ and the crocodile

BY ALF WILSON

SMALL fleet owner Jim Symes from Cooktown in Far North Queensland is known as the Snake Man – and was recently stalked by a 4.5m long man-eating crocodile.

Symes, 66, is a genuine character. He travels on some of the most remote roads and is a long time registered snake handler and breeder.

He owns and runs Cooktown Pest Control and has three trucks including the Mitsubishi Canter I saw him with at the Goldfield Ashes Cricket Carnival at Charters Towers in January, supporting his former Townsville club, Wanderers.

The Canter was parked beside one of the fields, where the Wanderers were competing.

“It took me eight hours to drive the truck down from Cooktown. I like to meet up with the boys and watch my old team play,” he said.

Symes possesses a wonderful and witty sense of humour. Written on his truck are the insects he does pest control for: “lazy husbands, mothers in law, rodents and ferals”.

Symes has a property near the Lion’s Den Hotel, an iconic Australian pub near Cooktown, with a loyal bunch of locals, which is also visited by thousands of tourists each year.

“I travel to remote communities such as Kowanyama, Pormpuraaw, Lockhart River, Aurukun and Mapoon to name a few, over some very rough dirt roads. The worst one is the 120km stretch between Kowanyama and Pormpuraaw. It once took me eight hours,” he said.

On his travels, Symes likes stopping at the Laura Roadhouse.

He also told me how he almost became a meal for a hungry crocodile at a remote water-