It’s an hour or so back to the Gibb River Road (south) from Drysdale River Station, and then we continued west. The corrugations continued too. At least you get to pause now and then to check on other travellers that have pulled over. Lately, there’s been the spare tyre that dropped off a trailer, the stone guard over a gas tank that came loose, the flat tyre with bonus damaged rim, and the pipe that connected the gas to the engine that came off – unfixable – and the guy had no petrol left to switch to, being the same guy who was sure he could fix it. But actually couldn’t.
The Barnett Range loomed up on our left, a nice surprise after so much flat terrain.
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Now any mother reading this will know that a child’s diet wouldn’t be complete without good old BBQ shapes, but I’ve never, ever paid $5.50 a box! And the boxes are squashed. This was at Drysdale River Station, where diesel was $2.40/L and petrol was $2.45/L.
We just don’t know how lucky us city folk are.

We caught up with Anne, who owns the Station, for a yarn about the days before tourism changed the life of a cattle station owner in the Kimberley. Her husband, John, was away grading road on another station.

We haven’t seen a lot of wildlife so far, but we did spot this water monitor on our walk to Mitchell Falls. He was in a billabong next to Mertens Creek, filled with these lilies.

I mentioned before the many fires in this region – started by Parks staff, station owners or lightening. And of course the kites have worked out how to move burning embers to new ground to keep flushing out the small reptiles for their dinner.
Here’s a pic (left) on the Kalumburu Road with one side burnt out and the other still green. The pic on the right makes the fire mark look like a high water mark from a flood.

So here it is. Mitchell Falls. Or if we’re going for the new name, it’s Punamii-unpuu. Sorry, but I’m sticking with the whitefella name today.
The reward was worth the effort – from the Gibb River Road it’s 10 hours driving (return), plus 5 hours walking (return) plus a couple of nights camping to see the Falls. Of course there’s the helicopter option. You can fly over the falls, and even land there. You can fly everywhere in the Kimberley! A helicopter pilot would never be out of a job round here.
The walk in is pretty easy, about 3.7km each way, taking you past Little Mertens Falls where we swam yesterday, then onto Big Mertens Falls. No safety police around again – although they do have a “cliff warning” sign. Thanks for that.

Big Mertens Creek flows into the Mitchell River just after these falls. Then it’s on to the Main Attraction.
Below is the first waterfall of the Mitchell, and you can stand right up next to it.

Just a hundred metres of so upstream is where you walk across the river. It’s only knee deep at this time of year. The choppers land right on the rocks at the top of the falls, so the wilderness is continually punctuated with the hum of them landing, taking off and generally taking in the view. I believe there is a push from Parks to stop them landing at the falls.

You’re not allowed to swim below the top pool anymore, due to cultural and croc reasons, but I reckon the third pool looks pretty good for a dip.