As we drove out of Katherine we felt a desire to find a good swimming hole, since we’d been taunted by hellishly hot weather and plenty of inviting looking water that we couldn’t (absolutely not… under no circumstances… don’t even think about it) swim in. Our lonely planet guidebook informed us that we could cool ourselves in the water of Edith Falls as long as it had been opened after the rains, so we pulled off at the sign to try our luck. After indulging in a picnic of cheese and crackers we headed down to the waterside and found a ranger who explained that the falls had been reopened that day after passing the 3 day saltwater crocodile survey. The ranger sounded confident that the water would be saltwater croc free but told us were we to come down to the swimming hole at night we’d see dozens of little red eyes belonging to the freshwater crocodile population which was apparently thriving in Edith Falls. According to every local we’d spoken to in the top end it would be almost impossible to get ourselves maimed by a freshy but we still approached our swim a little gingerly and watched every shadow suspiciously.
The water was divine though and our swim mission ultimately successful. We even took Sanchez for a bit of a dip!
