Our Family Trips: Day 12 – Mitchell Falls 20/7/18

7.30am we left the camp ground to head off on our adventure for the day, got going as early as we could. Everything you read about the walk says to allow 4-5 hours to complete it so we easily have a 10 hour day ahead of us with the drive.

It took us 1.5 hours to drive the first 30 km of the road, and we arrived at the carpark at 10.35am so the information of the 3 hour drive is about right – to be honest though in all of our opinions the road is not the worst road ever, it is a standard bush track and it is what you would expect a bush track to be, it isn’t maintained and although they are doing some work it is only because of extreme flood damage but they haven’t done much as of yet. It is a very pretty drive and the scenery just changes almost immediately from anything else you see in this area, its all palm trees and gum trees together but everything is so green and skinny and tall as they are all fighting for sunlight and space.

We went straight to the Helicopter charter office to organise the helicopter flight on the way back, we decided long ago that we would do the helicopter one way and the best way would be to walk up and fly back, unfortunately they couldn’t match the timing we needed, they have 8 helicopters and 9 pilots and currently only have 1 pilot flying as they have all been overworked so much in the last week that they are out of hours and have to have a break, which meant that the times for the flights are limited.

We were advised to catch the chopper up and walk back, no time restrictions to meet that way and they said the walk is exactly the same whether you walk up or back its not uphill one way and downhill the other or anything so we settled on that and waited for 15 minutes for our flight and left at 11.30am on the helicopter.

$299 per person for 18 minute flight which takes you over the National Park, shows you were the fresh water and sea water meet, and you get a fantastic view of Little Mertens, Big Mertens, Little Michell Falls and the Main big Mitchell Falls – it is absolutely spectacular and was worth every cent to experience, highly recommended to anyone who is thinking about it. Alexis was ridiculously excited to be finally able to go on a helicopter after watching them for so long but once we were in the air she panicked and took off her headset, seatbelt and told Anthony she was getting out so it was a bit of a hard flight trying to settle her down but about half way through she calmed down and was able to just enjoy it which was nice.

The helicopter lands and the very top of Mitchell Falls and leaves you to continue on the walk, its amazing to get out of a helicopter and stand above the most amazing falls ever seen and just take it all in, such a beautiful place. We sat down overlooking the falls and had some lunch before starting the walk so we all had our strength up. It is a hot day and starting the walk at lunchtime isn’t the best idea but we didn’t have a whole lot of options so off we went.

The start of the walk in the top of the falls so you walk across water which we took advantage of and we had a swim before we even started so we cooled down ready for the rest of the walk. Some of the water is still so the rocks underneath are all mossy and slippery so you need to be really careful where you walk, Dad stood on a seriously slippery rock and lost his balance about 10 times before finally able to step onto another rock to stop from falling in, he didn’t fall somehow which is good as he was carrying all the food, towels and phones HAHA it was very funny to watch him do a dance to try and stay upright.

The walk is hard work, so many different changes in track conditions, rocky hill climbs and decents to sandy flat walks and everything in between, its long and there isn’t a lot of shade so it was definitely hard work for all of us to complete, but stunning, the walk takes you along a hidden billabong where there are fresh water crocodiles relaxing on the banks, over the top of the waterfalls, underneath the waterfalls and around through the National Park grounds to experience it all. It took a lot longer than we thought that it would have, we were advised by the ranger as camp last night that the walk can be done in about 2 hours, we finished the walk at 3.30pm and were all absolutely buggered by the time we got to the car but so so happy that we did it!.

Just near the end of the walk you can climb down rocks to the bottom of Little Mertens Falls and have a swim, we were all soooooo hot and exhausted that we were absolutely going down to just stop and cool off for a while, it was breath taking how stunning it was, you can climb up behind the water fall and look through it, jump in the water and swim, laze around on rocks in the sun and if you walk up next to the falls there are aboriginal paintings on the rocks. We all got ready to dive in and as soon as we touched the water we backed right away – it was welllllll below freezing and there is no way you could convince yourself to just dive in no matter how hot you were... some people did but the screams that they let out told us everything we needed to know – bad idea. We just dipped out feet in for a bit but even that leaves you shivering so we just cooled off in the shade and had a rest before continuing on.

When we got back to the carpark we spoke to some older ladies who had just finished, they said that they had walked up and back – CRAZY, we all decided there is no way we could have walked both ways. Sadly they had then suffered from heat stroke and where trying to cool themselves down before they could drive back to camp. After discussion with them they had said that they should have cooled off at Little Mertens to continue the last bit of the walk but when they arrived they were advised that there was a big brown snake in the water and not to go in so they gave it a miss but suffered for it unfortunately. We didn’t see the snake but had no intentions of going in the water anyway.

We left the carpark at about 4pm after a rest and cool down and we started the drive back to King Edward Camp where mum was waiting for us. We arrived back at camp at 7.30pm so a full 12 hour day, the sun goes down here at about 5.30pm so most of the drive home was in the dark but we were able to find the better sections of the track having driven one way already, some of the corrugations could probably swallow the car whole lol, when the headlights hit them you cant even see the bottom of them, its just a dark hole they are their own kind of corrugation. We arrived back at camp to dinner ready and a fire burning which was very welcoming after such a big day.

We were due to have another day in the Mitchell Falls area but due to the unforseen events of the last few days we are on a timeframe to have to leave tomorrow and continue on. Kimberley region now have bookings for the gorge campgrounds along the Gibb Road which means you book and pay before we leave online and are then bound to your days so we have to keep on keeping on as we have pre-booked Manning Gorge which is our next stop. Fingers crossed for a better day on the road tomorrow.