crocodile
For two weeks a 20-foot long crocodile held a New Zealand man captive on a remote island in Australia. Wikimedia Commons

For two weeks, a New Zealander was trapped on a remote island in Australia. His captor was a crocodile.

The tourist known only as Ryan had kayaked out to remote Governor Island off Western Australia and planned on returning to the mainland when a 20-foot long crocodile got in his way, the Australian Broadcast Corporation reports. Every time he tried to leave, the giant reptile would surface, stalk him and appear like he would attack.

Ryan stayed on dry land with limited food and water supplies for two weeks until a nearby resident spotted a light on the island and decided to investigate.

"When I came round through Red Bluff opposite Governor Island I saw a flash in the scrub," Don McLeod said. "I went across and Ryan came out looking a bit distraught. He came down the beach, he had no hat on and no shirt on.”

Ryan told his rescuer what had happened.

"He said every time he got in his little kayak, which was only 2.5 meters (8 feet) long, this crocodile – who has lived there for many years and is a monster – has chased him," McLeod said.

The New Zealand man is recovering on Australia’s mainland and has yet to speak to the media, the Herald Sun reports.

McLeod says he’s seen the crocodile lurking in the area before. "He was going by quite fast one day and he just happened to surface alongside me as I was going past,” he said. “My boat is 20 feet long and he was well up on the 20 feet mark."

When McLeod rescued the stranded Kiwi, he said he was “desperate for water.”

"We gave him a cold beer, which was probably the wrong thing, and then he went to sleep about three-quarters of the way home,” McLeod said, adding that the man had no idea there were crocodiles in the water.

"A lot of people are a bit naive about these things,” McLeod said. "Even though the crocodiles have been reduced along the coast by this poaching business, there's still a number of these very old ones that are cunning and certainly on the lookout for an easy meal. He's very, very lucky."

Australia