RATED as the most dangerous crossing in Australia, Cahills Crossing is named after pioneer settler Paddy Cahill who was known as the “Buffalo Bill” of Australia due to his prowess as a buffalo shooter. While the original ‘Cahills Crossing’ is a couple of kilometres upstream in the freshwater reach of the river, the existing causeway was named after him when it was constructed in 1956 – and while some sources claim it’s the original, it’s not.
RIVER ADVENTURES
I first saw the crossing in the early 1960s during a fishing and hunting trip to the Alligator Rivers Region, as the area was then known by. It became the Kakadu National Park in 1979. In May 1975, my wife Eileen and I drove into Darwin in our Series 3 Land Rover tray-back to find a city in despair and broken from its disastrous bout with Cyclone Tracy on Christmas Eve, 1974. We had permits for
