North Kimberley Day 29 - Mitchell Falls Adventure

Day 29 - Friday 20/7/01
Start - Mitchell Falls
Stop - Mitchell Falls

It was David’s turn to baby-sit Leah so Colin, Sandy and I shared our first helicopter experience on a 48 minute Coastal tour taking in the Mitchell Plateau out to the coast at Port Wanderer, right up the Mitchell River, along the Surveyor River to Surveyors Pool and finally right up through the falls of Little Mitchell and the main Mitchell Falls where we landed at the top of the falls and met up with David who had walked the 3.5km from camp to the falls arriving at about the same time. It was the best $230 I have ever spent and one of the most memorable experiences of my entire life so far (mind you I am not that great with heights, so the exhilaration of coping with this whilst hanging my cameras out of a “no door” helicopter was thrilling).

After the flight, we all met up and spent some time climbing to a good vantage point for more photos before taking the return walk to camp. We had to wade across the top of the main falls where the water was running quite strong and up to our thighs in one spot. The track is very poorly marked and quite rocky - not recommended at night. There are plenty of swimming opportunities – both at the top of the Mitchell Falls (brilliant!) and then at Mertens Falls 500m along, then 2.5km to Little Mertens.

Once back at camp, we made a few trips back to the nearest creek for cooling off in the late afternoon and again the next morning. (No facilities at the Mitchell Falls campground other than long-drop toilets).