Guinness world record holding freediver Ant Williams has dived all over the globe, yet deems the sinkholes in the Limestone Coast as ‘world class’.

Mr Williams broke the world record for the deepest dive under ice in 2019, reaching a depth of 70 metres in Norway and at his peak held a world number three ranking for free diving over a five-year period.

He has travelled all over the world freediving such as Switzerland, all through the Mediterranean, France, Italy, Spain, the United States of America and Asia.

However, during a recent visit to the Limestone Coast Mr Williams likened the water in the region to the new sequel of the cinematic masterpiece Avatar, Avatar: The Way of Water.

He visited Piccaninnie Ponds, Ewens Ponds and Carpenters Rocks with film company Safari Global on his whirlwind tour of the region to create a short film.

Mr Williams came to the area with a diving buddy a year ago and said he had been keen to return ever since.

“Last time I came up with a free-

diving instructor at Kilsby’s Sinkhole and he just took a few random photos,” he said.

“I thought they were random, but they were just incredible, like world class imagery.

“They could have been Mexican Cenotes, you just would not know, it looked like something out of Avatar so since then I was like ‘I have got to get back there’.”

Mr Williams is a regular with different film production companies and in particular Safari Global requested that if he was ever in the area again to let them know.

As per their request Mr Williams contacted them to let them know he was doing some freediving in December.

“They got three cameramen together and we just shot for four days,” he said.

“We were doing early starts through to having dinner at 11.30pm at night.

“There is just this richness of the countryside in South Australia that honestly just blew my mind.”

Mr Williams said unlike Bali and other tropical areas, the sinkholes in the Limestone Coast were in unexpected locations.

“We just had not realised the juxtaposition of being able to walk through what feels and looks like farmland to get to a sinkhole and go diving,” he said.

“It feels just like I’m on a movie set.

“It’s just so rare.

“You can go and dive in Bali and places like the Red Sea and you kind of expect it because you’re walking down on the sand, on a beach, it’s tropical and you expect there might be some nice reef or coral.

“What you do not expect is to be out in land in the middle of South Australia and there’s just a cave and it is going to be world class diving with water that looks like the clearest water you will ever see in your life.”

Mr Williams said he found Carpenters Rocks and its beauty of particular note.

“What I found unexpected was getting out to the coast and seeing how beautiful it is and just little things you guys probably take for granted but we cannot do,” he said.

“You cannot just take a car down onto the beach and drive along the beach for miles, whereas we did it in South Australia.

“We took the jeeps and towed jet skis along and we just went into the water, enjoyed the ocean and had a fire on the beach, just stuff that you go ‘it’s so easy here’.

“It’s like a traveller’s dream so I think it’s quite a unique experience and what it offers from a tourism perspective is so world class, but even as someone who has lived in Australia for 15 years, I did not really know about it.

“I see it as a place for snorkellers like mums, dads and their kids to go and just to be blown away especially when you have this Avatar movie coming out that is all shot under water, it just looks like Avatar.

“What you have got in your backyard in South Australia is world class, we should celebrate it, enjoy it, experience it and promote it because more people should know about it.”

Mr Williams says despite how it is perceived by the world, he personally does not view freediving as an extreme sport.

“It’s a sport where if you follow all the rules then you can do the sport very, very safely,” he said.

“In 20 years, I have not had an injury.

“If you break the rules in the sport that’s when it can genuinely be a very high risk to life.

“It is available and accessible to anyone who wants to do it and you just need to do a course.

“You have to find out what these rules are, you have got to get trained and then get into the sport in a more structured way.”