In the rainforest near Babinda, Queensland, the water looks impossibly clear, a series of cascading streams slipping over granite boulders, pooling in deep basins before rushing through narrow chutes. This place is known as the Devil’s Pool, a site both beautiful and unforgiving, wrapped in mist and woven into one of Australia’s most unsettling local legends. Over the last century, at least seventeen young men have drowned here under circumstances that defy simple explanation. The pattern is so consistent, so eerily specific, that locals long ago turned to an older story to make sense of it: the tale of Oolana, a young Aboriginal woman whose spirit, they say, still haunts the waters, luring men to their deaths.
The legend begins in the Dreamtime with Oolana of the Yidinji people, who was promised to a tribal elder but fell in love with Dyga, a young man from another group. When their secret union was discovered, the lovers fled into the mountains, pursued by warriors determined to bring Oolana back. Cornered near the rushing waters, Oolana cried out in despair and plunged into the torrent. Dyga followed, but neither resurfaced. According to lore, the water took her in, and her grief, anger, and longing fused with the land itself. She became part of the river. Her spirit remained.
For generations, the story lay quietly alongside the real dangers of the creek. The granite here is slick even when dry, and underwater currents cut sideways beneath boulders in ways that even experienced swimmers fail to anticipate. But beginning in the 1940s, something darker took shape in the collective memory of Babinda: a sequence of drownings so consistent in victim profile that it soon drew national attention. Almost every case involved a young man, healthy, athletic, often familiar with water, who was seen entering the stream without concern before being abruptly pulled under with shocking force.
Local trackers, rescuers, and police often described the same bewildering pattern: the victim would vanish into what looked like calm water, and the current would behave in ways that made no sense, dragging the person backwards or sideways rather than downstream. Some officers spoke of hearing sudden splashes without seeing a fall. One rescuer described watching bubbles rise in a perfect circle, as though someone were spinning beneath the surface in place. In multiple cases, the bodies were found pinned in underwater pockets carved into the rock, chambers that could only be reached by unpredictable hydraulics.
It was the repetition that solidified the legend. Seventeen documented drownings, overwhelmingly young men, often under age thirty. No women. No older adults. No children. The demographic pattern was so stark that Babinda residents began to insist the old story must hold truth: that Oolana’s spirit was still searching for her lost lover, and that she mistook the young men for him, drawing them toward her. Elders from the Yidinji and other First Nations groups cautioned visitors to respect the site, warning that the water was alive and that grief this deep never let go easily.
Modern hydrologists have tried to map the currents, pointing to the unique topography of the granite chutes. They describe siphoning motions, invisible reverse flows that pull downward rather than outward. These explanations are sound on paper, yet rescuers who have entered the water describe sensations far stranger: sudden downward vortices where none should exist, and the uncanny feeling of being shoved rather than pulled. Some emerge shaken, admitting quietly that the spirit story, while supernatural, fits the emotional truth of the place better than any scientific description.
The path to the Devil’s Pool is now marked with prominent warnings, and many visitors approach with a mix of fascination and unease. The air is cool, the rainforest dense, and the rocks polished smooth by centuries of water. A plaque stands near the overlook, inscribed with poetry dedicated to the lost. Locals still perform quiet rituals when a new drowning occurs, leaving flowers or painted stones at the water’s edge. The story of Oolana is not treated as myth here. It is treated as memory, something to be honored rather than dismissed.
Standing above the Pool, watching the water slip between the boulders with deceptive calm, it is easy to understand how the place inspired both love and sorrow. Whether the force that pulls young men under is a quirk of hydraulics or the lingering grief of a spirit who never stopped longing for her lost partner, the effect is the same: the Devil’s Pool remains one of Australia’s most haunting natural sites, a place where beauty and danger intertwine, and where the past feels close enough to touch in the cool spray of the water.
Sources & Further Reading:
– Queensland Police incident reports and search-and-rescue summaries regarding Devil’s Pool drownings.
– Babinda local oral histories and Yidinji cultural accounts of the Oolana legend.
– ABC News Australia coverage of Devil’s Pool fatalities and geological assessments.
– Queensland Parks and Wildlife Service safety and geological studies of the Babinda Boulders region.
– Courier-Mail archival reporting on historical drownings dating back to the 1940s.
(One of many stories shared by Headcount Coffee — where mystery, history, and late-night reading meet.)
