SYDNEY (AFP) – A bunch of Australians are celebrating after taking a weekend car drive across the bottom of crocodile-populated Darwin Harbour.
A team of dozens of engineers and divers completed the feat after refurbishing a 1978 Toyota Land Cruiser, swapping in an electric motor that was waterproofed for the 12.5-hour trip, said project leader Tom Lawrence.
About 30 divers took turns driving along the bottom of the harbour, slipping to depths of 30 metres on an eight-kilometre route that was slightly longer than planned after the car, baptised the “mudcrab”, was “blown off course”, Lawrence told AFP on Tuesday.
“There’s quite notoriously big crocodiles and tiger sharks in the Darwin Harbour, but there’s also box jellyfish and irukandji (jellyfish) as well,” he said, describing some of the dangers faced during the Saturday evening feat.
“It’s always a risk but no-one was particularly concerned about it. A giant, orange Land Cruiser driving around under the water is probably not the sort of thing wildlife would swim towards.”
It was the first successful underwater car crossing of Darwin Harbour after a previous attempt in 1983 that relied on an old diesel motor and giant snorkels stopped about half-way, Lawrence explained.
But why make the attempt at all?
“We just asked ourselves that on repeat, especially for the last three months (it took) to rebuild it,” Lawrence said.
