David Whitley steels himself for a dose of radiation at Australia’s most controversial uranium mine.

If there’s one stretch of water that I really don’t want to go swimming in, it’s the tempting-looking billabong in front of me. Except it’s not a billabong. It’s a ‘retention pond’, and it belongs to what is arguably the most controversial mine in the world.

Approximately 10% of the uranium that powers the world’s nuclear power stations comes from the Ranger mine in the Northern Territory. But fears about contamination mean that all water that falls on the 700 hectare site has to stay within its boundaries.

But the wildlife doesn’t seem to share the same concerns. Ranger’s retention ponds appear to have become something of a wetland haven – and the birds have been joined by a couple of rather sizable saltwater crocs. So far they have managed to evade the traps sat at the water’s edge. It’s fair to say that a trip to a mine isn’t what most people pencil in as a must-do when they come to Kakadu National Park. With so many beauty spots, rock art sites and rugged escarpments, it seems absurd to spend a morning looking at man’s desecration of the landscape.

But Ranger and Kakadu are inextricably linked. Ranger isn’t inside the National Park and never has been – but the two exist like warring brothers. Both were created at roughly the same time; the National Park was declared almost as a sop to the environmentalists who wanted to stop the mine opening.

Kakadu’s main settlement, Jabiru, was largely set up as a place to house mine workers as well – even though it has taken on more of a tourism focus since. And it is from Jabiru’s tiny airport that the Ranger mine tours leave. We’re all given fluorescent jackets, hard hats and protective visors by Yuri, who has the delightful job of trying to make uranium extraction fun.

By and large, it isn’t. Much of the process of getting ready-to-export uranium oxide from the rock blasted out of the ground can be summarised as follows: Mix with nasty chemical in big piece of machinery, then repeat continually with other bits of big machinery and slightly different nasty chemicals. Leaflets are handed out which attempt to explain the tediously convoluted process, but it really is for the boffins only.

For the less egg-headed visitors, the joys come in big diggers and even bigger holes. The view from over the fence of the main pit is quite extraordinary. The hole is chipped out in ridges - almost like a paddy field - and tunnels down for 195m before it hits the water at the bottom. On our visit, there’s another 35m until the very bottom, but this varies massively with the seasons. The rainwater is pumped out into the retention ponds, and during the dry season there can be none at the bottom. At the height of the wet, almost the entire pit can be full.

Dirt roads spiral down into the hole, and industrial vehicles seem in constant motion around them. Yuri points out an excavator. “I could easily drive our minibus into its scoop, you know,” he says. It’s clearly not a toy. He also points out where a blasting will take place in a few hours’ time. The stats are rather impressive. The average blast involves 14 tonnes of explosive, and shifts 70,000 tonnes of rock. Only 0.4% of this will be uranium, and a tiny fraction of that is eventually used to generate nuclear power.

We’re allowed out of the bus to peer into the big hole, but once it starts to get a bit Bond villain lair-ish, we’re firmly ensconced inside. Around the crushers, leach tanks and centrifuges, we learn about the mine’s constant battle to stay on the good side of the environmental monitors. “This is probably the most scrutinised mine in the world,” says Yuri. And that means that all vehicles have to be thoroughly washed and cleaned before they leave the site.

Others have strips of red tape affixed to them. They’ll never leave the site, and when the mine closes, they’ll be thrown into the pit to be covered by the rubble in the towering mounds that surround the giant hole. Many of the precautions seem heavy-handed, but they have to be. Fascinating though the whole operation may be, it is not a playground.

So is it safe for tourists to visit a uranium mine? Yuri thinks uranium is portrayed as something of bogeyman by people who don’t understand what radiation is and does. “There’s natural background radiation everywhere,” he says.”

“And due to the rock they’re made from, you’re probably exposed to more radiation standing on the steps on the Sydney Opera House than you are standing by this mine.” Well, at least the crocs seem happy enough...

Disclosure: David stayed at the uniquely croc-shaped Holiday Inn Jabiru Gagudju Crocodile (HolidayInn.com), which offers rooms for from $129 per night.