Croc City: For the brave

Some people like having tea. Normal people. People with little or no sense of adventure. These people like to dust their collection of porcelain statuettes, check their Facebooks and preferably make it to bed by 8pm in the evening.

Then you get people like Anton Lötter, owner of Croc City in Lanseria. Entrepreneur, thrill seeker and Nile crocodile enthusiast. Joburg’s very own Steve Irwin – or a rather improved version, seeing as he is still alive and well, and possesses all of his limbs and digits still.

Lötter, originally an IT engineer from Fourways, had enough of the big city’s hustle and bustle and decided to make a different lifestyle for himself and his family by buying an agricultural property close to the Lion Park in 1999.

“We weren’t sure of what business to run from the property in order to make it profitable,” continued Lötter. “So, seeing as I had a keen interest in exotic animals, I decided to build Gauteng’s first crocodile farm and name it Croc City.”

Croc City has since grown from strength to strength and is fast becoming one of Gauteng’s premier tourist destinations, boasting a variety of exotic animals, a restaurant with a home-made pizza oven and most recently, a fly-over zip line which flies tourists over their crocodile enclosures. Warning: not for the faint-hearted. There are also many other species of animals who find sanctuary.

Roodepoort Northsider’s news editor Joni Tollner was recently invited to go and enjoy a thrilling, adventurous afternoon at Croc City and her nerves definitely got the best of her when tour guide (and Crocodile Dundee look-a-like) Brendon Schaper asked her to hold a seven-year-old Mexican red knee tarantula, affectionately named Lola.

Tollner’s answer was a resounding and arachnophobic “no way”, so Lola was placed on her knee, but Tollner still couldn’t so much as glance at it due to being utterly petrified.

Shaper then draped an albino Burmese python, named Elvis of all things, around her neck, a feat she found far more accomplishable (or bearable, according to her).

The highlight of the afternoon however, was the fly-over – designed by Chimp and Zee – and Tollner felt exhilarated after zipping across the three crocodile enclosures. She exclaimed that it was the “most thrilling I’ve ever done!”

To add a last taste of adventure to the exciting afternoon, Tollner ordered the ‘Tarantula’ pizza for lunch.

“It’s just chicken and mushroom toppings…” both Lötter and Schaper assured her with a wink and a smile.