Mitchell Falls

Up early again as everyone seems to wake at 6am. Finished packing the car as we are leaving the caravan at Drysdale for our side trip as the road is fairly rough.

We had bought 2 cheap tents, a gas burner and some floor mats in Kununurra in preparation. Decided we would just use our bedding from the caravan. Left about 9.30 and did well getting to turn off in 80mins. There were some corrugations, but you can go so much faster without the caravan!

After turn off the road was good to King Edward camp, where you have to buy an extortionate park pass. The road then continues to the Mitchell Falls campsite, about 80km away. Sounds easy, but the road is posted as not maintained and there were some pretty awesome corrugations for about 40km. So bad the DVD player refused to go on and you feel that your teeth are going to be damaged.

Stopped just before campground to collect firewood and arrived by 13.30, with only minor repairs needed to tighten the spotties. Put out the car awning and the tents, then went for a trip to Little Merten Falls for a paddle.

Got back to realise that the crows had eaten our defrosting spaghetti Bolognese so we had to improvise with a bacon, tomato and spaghetti dinner that was really tasty and everyone ate it all up sitting round the campfire. Luckily it wasn’t as cold overnight and the kids slept well only getting up at 6am.

We did some toasted cheese jaffles with our new iron over the gas burner, which were a great success. Started the walk by 7.30 and got there by 9, so we were pretty much the only people there. On the way we saw 3 snakes, a 3m olive python, a king brown and not sure about the other. Also loads of lizards. The water over the falls was small volume, but they would be awesome in the wet.

We all had a swim in the river above the Falls which was really refreshing and then walked back by noon. Packed up and had lunch, leaving at 13.45. Slightly quicker on the way back as knew the road and were back to Drysdale Station for 16.45. Car has decided that it was too rough and now has a non urgent error message that we will need to get checked out in Broome.

Drysdale Station had a beer garden so we had dinner there.