Mataranka Thermal Pools & Bitter Spring

Deep in the tropical savanna of Australia's Northern Territory, the Mataranka Thermal Pool emerges from an artesian aquifer as a startlingly clear spring surrounded by palms and pandanus trees. The water temperature holds steady at 34°C year-round — cool enough to be refreshing in the tropical heat, warm enough to feel genuinely therapeutic. Nearby Bitter Spring, a second thermal pool connected by a gentle current, allows swimmers to float downstream through a paperbark forest channel in a kind of natural lazy river. Both pools are part of Elsey National Park, which takes its name from Elsey Station — a cattle property made famous by Jeannie Gunn's 1908 novel 'We of the Never Never.' The park sits on the traditional country of the Yangman, Mangarayi, and Jawoyn peoples, for whom these thermal waters carry deep cultural and spiritual significance. The clear blue-green water, the surrounding palm forest, and the backdrop of red-sand savanna create a setting unlike any other hot spring in the world.