Day 28: Mitchell Falls, 350km

A BIG adventure day: big drive up a bad road (and back), 9km bush walk, river crossings, getting lost, seeing the falls and falling over.

Mitchell Falls

The upper falls

The river on the way in

Looks easy, right?

After hearing about the state of the 76km road and the difficulty of the walk to Mitchell Falls, we headed out early and planned to drive the bad (76km) section of road back to the campground to give us a head start the next day (good advice, thanks Rob). We set off at 6, and although that bad section took us over 2 hours, we were traveling so well we did the extra 100km back to Drysdale where we started, partly to give us an easier day the next day, but mainly because Ian really wanted a beer after such a big day. Were got back at 5.

One of the many road obstacles

 

We made the walk into the falls in under 1 ½ hours (despite 32 degree heat) and got some pics and had a great swim. Then Ian fell into the river on the crossing on the way out, and we got lost on the way back, requiring some bush bashing and another fall into the bushes by Ian. We finally found our way back (thanks to my GPS watch which had been tracking the walk) and had another well-deserved swim at Little Merten falls near the car park. By then we were drinking very warm water to stay hydrated and our chocolate bar had turned into liquid. All we could think about was cold beer so we drove back to Drysdale for a bed, a beer and a cooked meal. 

At least we walked back to the car from the falls! All the oldies took a helicopter.

Our swimming hole on the way back

I blame getting lost on all the red dragonflies in the way! I thought they were rare but they are everywhere up here and we are still chasing them for photographs.

The bad road included the famous King Edward River Crossing, which came up above the doors (even with the suspension up, that would be around 500mm) and splashed around the air intake a little. Video here.

Hard to believe it is getting even dirtier

A few splashes around the air intake on the river crossing