We turned north off the Gibb River Road at the Kalumburu Road junction as our destination was Mitchell Falls. It's a 92km drive to the campground, 2-3 hours though. We were surprised to see so many palm trees and in such density. Despite the deep orange dirt and dust it was almost tropical.
After a long, fairly bumpy drive we settled in to the national park camping area, where we ended up spending 4 nights as we loved the area so much. The highlight of course was the 8.6km return walk to Mitchell Falls. We set off around 7.30 am, a gorgeous time of the morning here as the sun rises around 6am so we're always up early. The walk took us over a creek, across the top of a gorge, through some flat areas, along a shady gully, over rocks, through a river and finally over more rocks to a viewing area.
Oh wow, just
to be here was amazing. It only got
better though. There was a faint track
leading down a little further, then onto some rocks where we went between two
boulders and sat on a rocky ledge. From
here we could see the ‘classic’ Mitchell Falls view. All four tiers, top to bottom, with the
lowest fall dropping into a huge pool far below. Speaking of tiers, I’ll admit to shedding a
few tears – just the overwhelming sense of being here. A long-held dream I didn’t in all honesty
expect to realise. This was awesome in
every sense of the word and we sat up here for close to an hour, just taking it
all in.
Re-crossing the river, we made our way to where the river drops over the cliff to become the Mitchell Falls. It was beautiful up here! We could look down several tiers, we could see the flat first tier where the water laps under a cave and there’s a separate waterfall on the right wall. Best of all, up there in the hot sun, we could feel the light spray of the water as the breeze caught it. This was such fun!
Top of the Mitchell Falls |
Behind the falls |
Back at the
top of the falls there’s a series of rocky waterholes and a couple of these were
like sitting in a spa. The water came
from two directions and where it met in the crevice of two rocks, it gushed
into the waterhole with a lot of force and felt great on our backs.
We returned
to camp and at 6pm took our chairs to the campfire chat the ranger was
doing. This turned out to be fascinating
as he’s been a ranger at Mitchell Falls for 12 years and showed slides and
video clips he’s taken of the place during the wet season. We’d been wondering many times just how much
water flows through there in the wet and we saw the photographic evidence. It floods big time! No wonder everything’s closed for 5-6 months
and much of the Kimberley is inaccessible.
He also talked about the aboriginal art found in the area and the
archaeological digs that have been done and with which he was involved. A very intelligent and passionate man. We learned quite a lot. In fact almost every camper attended this
talk (about 80).
The next
couple of days we spent enjoying the area, especially Little Mertens Falls for
the swimming, the falls and the waterholes but also the nearby caves and rock
ledges full of aboriginal art. We both
got a real feel for this place … its beauty but also its relative isolation and
its history. A real highlight.