A place where you can swim with 35,000 crocodiles

“Swim with the crocodile! It’s impossible, it won’t happen,” my 10-year-old daughter grunted angrily.

However, another child on the boat jumped off the boat desperately, not worried about the return of some reptiles from the dinosaur era.

“When can we swim?” he roared, disapproving of the cruise ship reviews so far. A two-meter-long crocodile passed by—a jagged tail, armored scales, a mouth wide with cold, and a yawn—I also began to doubt. It’s not that there are crocodiles around, after all, they are fresh. This is their absolute number.

We cruise on Lake Argyll, the largest artificial lake in mainland Australia. It is home to more than 35,000 freshwater crocodiles, and we are about to swim with them. At sunset. This is the feeding time in the animal kingdom.

sneak into

The boat sighed and stopped, and the captain Greg Smith lowered the entrance ramp, and the impatient child rushed up, making a noisy splash. When the sun shone on the ocher cliffs, the passengers slid into the water one by one, cautiously at first, bleeding into a crimson before disappearing completely.

it’s time. With “YOLO!” Oops, I threw away the towel and slid into the water. “You only live once” is my motto for half a lap in Australia and it has helped me so far-pull me out of my comfort zone and do crazy things like climbing on a furry hike Waterfall, swimming in the cold swimming hole.

The water is warm. Inexplicable warmth, like a warm bath. Greg poured me a cold beer and skimmed over an upturned esky lid filled with dipping sauce and small wine glasses over the water. Here, we float on the noodle hammock in the pool and enjoy the most surreal sunset salute. This is happy hour, Kimberley style.

A great puddle

Lake Argyll is an amazing water area, so vast that it is more like an inland sea than a man-made reservoir. The lake was formed in 1972 due to the destruction of the Odder River. This is the second phase of a major irrigation project to support agriculture in the dry East Kimberley region during the dry season.

When the 335m-long dam wall was completed, engineers expected the lake to fill up in six to seven years. After experiencing continuous monsoon rains, it only took two years. The lake covers an area of ​​about 1,000 square kilometers, on a super-saturated blue canvas, inlaid in a rust-red frame.

On average, there is enough water to fill Sydney Harbour 21 times a day—more than three times the amount during the flood. “It takes 61 million years to drink Lake Ager with a straw,” the pilot joked on my plane. Kimberley Airlines A scenic flight as we buzzed over the isolated island. There are 70 to 90 islands (the number fluctuates with the water level). This is a lake whose volume comes from its surface area, not its depth. In fact, it is surprisingly shallow, only 12 to 14 meters deep on average, which explains why the water is so warm (up to 34 degrees in the rainy season).

It is also a thriving ecosystem, home to 26 species of native fish and one-third of Australia’s birds.in my Lake Argyll Cruise During the tour, we saw archerfish spit water at flying insects to catch prey, short-eared rock kangaroos wearing delicate black gloves and tails, and freshwater crocodiles with bulging stomachs filled with eggs.

Another pool

On land, there is only one water hole that can be compared with it, and that is the famous infinity pool Argyll Lake Resort and Caravan ParkUnlike the lake, the water here is terribly cold, but this does not stop tourists from taking risks for that typical Instagram photo.

Although it is easy to get to Lake Argyle as a day trip from Kununurra, 70 kilometers to the north, many people choose to stay overnight and the sunset alone is worth the trip. The caravan park accepts the least reservations (10% of the site), and a large number of caravans, camper trailers and RVs line up every day from sunrise to try to find a location. There is enough to explore here to stay for a few days, and the live music in the open-air restaurant creates a joyful inland atmosphere. There is also a steep walking path to the pontoon by the lake, where you can swim.

Crocodile watch

But you cannot swim in open water at sunset. When I finished my last sip of beer, the lake was burning amber in the fading twilight, almost forgetting the hordes of submarines lurking below. Greg said that in his 20 years of life on the water, crocodiles have never been a problem. “When we stopped, there was a man on that rock,” he said, pointing to a bank that might be a little too close to be comfortable. “But they won’t come in with all the noise we make.” Soon, Venus was shining overhead, strung beside the backlit crescent moon. time to go. As for my aggrieved daughter? She was the last person to return to the boat.

The author visited Lake Ager with the assistance of Tourism Western Australia.

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