A croc-infested, muddy river in central Queensland has been hailed as "gold" as a training ground for Australia's elite rowers.
The Australian team has been in a training camp at Rockhampton, honing their speed on the mighty Fitzroy River ahead of the World Rowing Championships in Bulgaria next month.
Australian senior men's coach Andrew Randell said the course was of international standard.
"It's very rare to find an eight-lane, buoyed course which is so well mapped out anywhere in the world, so this is really a piece of gold for us to train on," he said.
Australian men's quadruple scull rower David Watts said training in Queensland was crucial to their preparations for the year's most prestigious regatta.
"Canberra right now is 1 degree, foggy and terrible, whereas we've come here for three weeks, it's beautiful blue skies, late teens to early 20s, flat water. We really couldn't ask for much more," he said.
"I think it's really important to acclimatise. We did a fair bit of it last year when we went to Florida, in heat chambers and all that kind of stuff.
"Obviously this is beautiful in terms of natural temperatures to help our transition across to Europe."
Australian women's single scull rower Madeleine Edmunds agreed.
"I'm quite injury-prone but it's been pretty good coming up here into the warmer weather. My body likes the warmth, so I feel like I'm getting back on track," she said.
"And it can have a really big effect on how you race if you're not prepared for [the heat]."
Mixed feelings over likelihood of running into crocs
But Watts said there were a few aspects of training in northern Australia the team was a little unsure of.
"[The local crocodile farm] actually told us about a story that happened 20 or 30 years ago," he said.
"There was a [crocodile] sighting here from a girl who was paddling an outboard canoeing boat and she hit [a crocodile] on the head and it actually ripped apart the paddle.
"And they came out to catch the one croc later that day and they found three within the first 500 metres of here."
Crocodiles are spotted in the Fitzroy River regularly, with one of the most recent and high profile sightings being that of the shooting death of a 5.2-metre reptile last year.
The women's four rowers appeared less concerned.
Tasmanian rower and world championship gold medallist Sarah Hawe said they soon forgot about the reptiles.
"We were joking on the first day, but we quickly learned they weren't anything to worry about," she said.
Rowing Australia chief executive Ian Robson said the warm temperatures and smooth conditions on the water meant the team did not miss any training sessions.
"With the men based in Canberra we enjoy good facilities down there, but when we got back from Europe, their first morning in Canberra was -7," he said.
"Given we want to go back to Europe and it's been a really hot European summer, as much as we can still do the work, we're going to go through heat adjustments as much as time adjustments and travel.
"When you're looking to replicate environments at this time of year, Queensland and the north, outside of Western Australia, are probably the best place for us to go."
Mr Robson said a return to the Fitzroy River ahead of the 2020 Olympic Games in Japan would be a strong possibility for the team.
"We see this as a logical leaping point from Australia into Japan; minimal time difference, replicate the heat that we know we'll get in Japan, and just to be able to be dedicated in this facility is fantastic," he said.
