Devil's Pool

Devil's Pool-Victoria Falls(Zambia)

• Devil's Pool or Babinda Boulders is a natural pool at the confluence of three streams among a group of boulders near Babinda, Queensland, Australia. The feature is regarded in local folklore due to the substantial number of deaths that have occurred there a popular story involves a curse placed by an Aboriginal woman.

• In 2005, the Australia TV program Message Stick gave an account of the Pool through interviews and testimonies of witnesses to investigate the prevalence of deaths to young male travellers over the years.The pools have taken 17 lives since 1959.The local council urges visitors to stay within a designated swimming area to be safe.

• The legend arises from the story of a woman who married a respected tribal elder but ran away with a beautiful young man visiting for the event. When they were captured she threw herself into the waters to escape, calling for her lover to follow her. The legend goes that her spirit guards the boulders and that her calls for her lover can still be heard.

• A sign warns of the dangers of swimming there because the water is deep and fast flowing through channels and over underwater rocks but deaths still occur – some by swimming, others by falling in unexpectedly, many being wedged in a rock "chute".

• Local Aboriginal people believe that when people disrespect the site, the site "disrespects" them in return. One account given was a man who was warned, but kicked the plaque, slipped into the hole and drowned where a body had just been recovered. Another tells of a drowned man whose father photographed the site in memoriam. When the photograph was developed the son's face appeared on the rocks:When the father came down, the police took him out and showed him where he went down in the chute. And he took the photo of that, thinking it's just a chute. And he came back and they showed him where they had him tied up there. And when he went over to Innisfail the next morning to get them developed that's what they found. That photo, he's even got the cigarette in his mouth.