Beyond Bondi

Australia's many water-based adventures don't end at its coastal edges.

by Jessica Wynne Lockhart

With a snorkel mask snug against my face, I float on a raft in crystal-clear water. Beside me, my guide points out the tiniest of fish below. “There are more than 30 species that live here,” he says. He’s even helped to identify critically endangered species, like the rare opal cling goby. His enthusiasm for the creatures is contagious, and my eyes are wide with wonder as I begin to spot fish hiding amongst the rocks, the sun glinting off their scales.

As a guest at Silky Oaks Lodge, a luxury retreat in far north Queensland, located adjacent to the Daintree Rainforest, I’m a 30-minute drive from Port Douglas, the jumping-off point for some of the best diving on the Great Barrier Reef. But today, the water I’m submerged in isn’t salt, and I didn’t even have to board a boat to get here. I drift down the Mossman River, a pristine estuarine system that flows from the Great Dividing Range to the Coral Sea.

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If you ask tourists what to do on the coast of Australia, you’ll get the same responses: see the Great Barrier Reef, hang out at Sydney’s Bondi Beach, go surfing. But Australia’s water-based adventures don’t end there—the country is also home to hundreds of rivers, lakes and waterfalls, where visitors can gain perspective into its unique ecology and 65,000 years of human history.

Hike cliffs at the edge of the Murray River

Tourism Australia

That was my experience on the Murray River, the thirdlongest navigable river on Earth, which runs through the country’s southeast corner. Although I’d always perceived Australia as being a “sunburnt country” (a phrase coined by poet Dorothea Mackellar circa 1904), on a multiday guided tour with Murray River Trails, I learn how the First Nations people lived with the ephemeral nature of Australia’s waterways. As we walk through the bush— emus and kangaroos making frequent appearances—I see massive oblong scars on red gum trees, evidence of Aboriginal canoe-making hundreds of years ago.

Once only seasonal, today the Murray is dammed. It’s also to thank for the Riverland’s colorful vineyards and orchards, making it a popular domestic destination for houseboating, water skiing and kayaking. Yet this threehour drive east of Adelaide remains relatively unknown to international visitors.

Spot a dingo first-hand

Tourism Australia

Drift away

But even in the most iconic destinations, freshwater is the hero. Take, for example, K’gari (formerly known as Fraser Island). The world’s largest sand island, its main attraction—other than its population of wild dingoes—is its unusual perched lakes, where dunes of the finest white sand hold aquamarine water high in natural swimming pools.

Inland, swimming holes complete with waterfalls that serve as natural waterslides are found throughout the rainforest regions, with many not far from urban centers. And while we can thank Steve Irwin for our belief that crocodiles are never far away, croc country is actually only a very small range across Australia’s Top End.

Float down Eli Creek

Tourism Australia

Today, I’m technically within that range, but my guide assures me there’s no reason for concern. “The water here is too clear for crocodiles to ambush prey,” he says.

Instead, he encourages me to lie back on my raft and enjoy the ride on the gentle current. Brilliant blue Ulysses butterflies flit through the air, and the rainforest canopy shelters me high above.