THURSDAY 20 JUNE 2019
We are now in the routine of early to bed, early to rise and
so we were awake just before the birds started their morning chorus and
therefore had plenty of time for breakfast and getting prepared for the trip to
Mitchell Falls. Rosco had led us to
believe that the road into the Falls wasn’t too bad at the moment and the road
that can take up to 2 to 3 hours to traverse could be done in about an hour and
a half. Hoping he was right, but just in
case, we still left the camp ground at 7.30am and headed north.
Well if that’s the road when it is good, I’d hate to see it
when it is bad as it was still pretty rough going. The Jeep, however, free of its millstone of
van, skipped over the corrugations like a flat stone across a pond and we
managed a reasonably steady speed.
Jenny’s category of regional roads remained true today with the
occasional light whitish sections a welcome relief from the arduous dark brown
sections. Just when we thought the
corrugations couldn’t get any worse, it was time for the occasional large
boulder to be thrown into the mix. Just
to keep it interesting. We particularly
liked the signs indicating not just a steep, but a vertical descent as
well! We passed a few tour buses coming
the other way (which was an added thrill around a blind corner) and also a
dingo but the trip was most notable for the corrugations and the huge groves of
palm trees which meant you really couldn’t see anything except the rough road
snaking between them.
About an hour and ¾ later we finally made it to the Mitchell
Falls camp ground and start off point for the walking trail up to the
Falls. We checked in at the helicopter
office first and rearranged our flight back for a bit earlier than we had
booked as we had made it out here much earlier than expected.
So about 9.30am we were hiking off up the track. It was about 24 degrees with a breeze blowing
so not too arduous a hike. Most
disappointingly Little Merten Falls weren’t flowing at all and neither was Big
Merten Falls so we had to hike pretty much to the top before we could have a
swim. By then it was much warmer and we
were a bit hotter so it was a welcome relief to throw off our hiking boots and
sink into the cool waters of the Mitchell River upstream from the falls. The water was a lovely temperature and not
too cold and there were lots of fish investigating our toes so absolutely
blissful.
Finally emerged and ate our sandwiches and then wandered up
to the front of the Falls. Three of the
four tiers were flowing, albeit not spectacularly, but enough to be pretty and
worth the effort to get here. One of
Larry’s bucket list things to do or see accomplished. We sat with one of the
few old blokes from the APT tour who had bothered to walk around to a vantage
point, rather than just sit in the shaded rest area waiting for a return
helicopter flight, and soaked in the scenery for a while before it was time for
our chopper flight back to base.
The helicopter pilot did a couple of loops around the top of
the falls for us to get good vantage points from both sides (secretly I think
he enjoys tipping the open sided helicopter over so he can watch the passengers
shriek and grab for the nearest hand
hold) and then back to base. A fairly
expensive taxi service but well worth it for the different perspective of the
landscape we had just traversed.
Grabbed some cold drinks out of the back of the trusty Jeep
and then set her through her paces on the journey home. Larry was impressed to see he managed to get
a new warning light that he had never seen before when he managed to drift
around a couple of the more corrigated sandy corners of the road. Other than that a fairly uneventful trip back
to base and after unpacking we fished the pool noodles out of the back of the
car and went back to our waterhole for a swim.
A bit breezy by now and the swim was just a little too invigorating so
we gave up the idea of lounging around in the water with a beer in hand and
headed back to the van and drank the beer there instead. Larry then went searching for hidden caches
of beer in the van only to find that he had miscalculated his beer requirements
and is now threatening to drink my cider!!
A quick and easy meal of spaghetti and pesto sauce after our
busy day and then probably early to bed.
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