Crocodile bites tourist's face

A woman bitten on the face by a crocodile in a rock pool above the Kimberley's Prince Regent River last Friday spent the weekend in Broome Hospital and was still a patient there on Monday morning.

The woman was swimming when she was attacked about noon on Friday as other boat passengers lounged nearby in the rock pool.

It is thought the reptile may have been pushed up into the usually safe waterhole by a high tide.

A spokeswoman from Discovery One, the charter catamaran on which the woman and her husband were passengers, said the tourist, in her 50s, had facial cuts but was not badly hurt.

"It was very unexpected, it's a place where a lot of boats take their passengers for a swim because it is high above the river and a crocodile is not expected to be found, " the spokeswoman said.

"We're very aware that the place is full of crocodiles.

"It's just supposition but the captain thinks it's possible the crocodile was washed up there on a high tide, though it still would have had to walk quite a way."

The spokeswoman said the important thing was that the woman was walking and talking.

"She had facial lacerations but her injuries are not life-threatening," she said.

The woman was taken by the Royal Flying Doctor Service to Broome Hospital.