Steve Irwin
‘ My fingers clamped around the croc’s thick neck and my chin slammed into its bony head as my chest landed on its back and my legs wrapped around the base of the tail. With eyes wide open I was being thrashed around in the muddy water. I saw pulses of light as I rolled over and over. There’s no way I was letting go and I hung on for grim death.’
The glowing afternoon sun had already dropped below the horizon, leaving the rugged landscape of the outback under a heavy veil of darkness. When most people would venture back to their houses in preparation for dinner, nine-year-old Steve Irwin was out under the mercy of the cruel Australian outback, attempting his first crocodile capture.
Rarely seen without dirt under his fingernails or dressed in anything apart from his famous khaki uniform, Irwin's 'Aussie' boyish good looks, larger-than-life personality and unique ability to capture the oldest prehistoric dinosaur of our time, has ultimately earned him the legendry title 'The Crocodile Hunter' amongst loyal fans around the world.
The extraordinary life of crocodile legend Steve Irwin has expertly been captured within his one hundred and forty-four page autobiography, appropriately entitled ‘The Crocodile Hunter’. Throughout the book, Steve recounts his most memorable moments growing up surrounded by wildlife, which have ultimately contributed to the dedication he possesses towards wildlife today, from receiving his first python at six years of age, to playing cops and robbers with his best friends, a pet emu, brolga and curlew,
Born in Essendon, on February 22, 1962 to keen naturalists and herpetologists, Bob and Lyn Irwin, Steve began to demonstrate such personal traits of passion and dedication towards wildlife and environmental conservation from an early age. The majority of Steve’s childhood was filled with numerous adventures and countless animal encounters, from spotting and capturing, to basically living and breathing the outback. Through years of watching his father efficiently work through the process of capturing one of the most dangerous animals in Australia, almost as routinely as if he were about to sit down for a cup of coffee, Steve’s fascination and knowledge developed, and soon he found his dad teaching him the Irwin technique of catching a crocodile he would grow up to know so well.
Whilst recounting his childhood, Steve chooses to portray himself as a naive adolescent, which he ultimately achieves by including such self-discourses...