Crocodile found napping in Qld backyard

Residents got a New Year's Eve surprise when they woke up to find a huge crocodile basking in a backyard in northern Queensland.

The three-and-a-half meter reptile wandered up the Esplanade in Karumba before having a rest in the garden of a house.

Police and locals built a wall of wheelie bins and hay bales across the road to keep the croc contained before wildlife experts could relocate it to a more suitable location.

One officer even posed for a photo with the beast, which can be seen lounging behind a wire fence.

Commissioner Ian Stewart praised his constables for their quick thinking and joked that they would have been doing "a lot of dancing" to keep a safe distance.

"It just shows you the diversity of policing in this great state of ours that we had police off wrangling crocodiles during the day ... while waiting for the appropriate department officers to come and take possession of it and move it somewhere more safe for that community."