#mitchell plateau

SCALY TAILED POSSUM (Wyulda squamicaudata)

Mitchell Plateau, Western Australia

Photo Credit: Matthew Clancy, Victoria

Saint George Basin Out in the far north of Western Australia and only accessible by air or boat lies this beautiful blue harbour carved by the rising sea at the end of the last ice age out of the ancient rocks. The dark green areas are tidal flats filled with mangrove forests that are submerged by the twice daily high tides, while the rest of the bay is bounded by steep cliffs. At the lower right, the Prince Regent River joins the basin, and the whole area is part of a UNESCO Biosphere Preserve of the same name, now incorporated into a larger national park encompassing the whole Mitchell plateau.

Heading north up the Kalumbaru Road from Drysdale station minus "turtle" for the first time in the trip. The talk around the camp at drysdale is leave the trailer at the station if you can we are not really set up too do this so we improvise with what we have. The back of the Disco is packed with , rolled bedding, tents and all our food for 2-3 days, no fridge as it wont fit with all the other stuff. Cooper and I in the car and ollie and tony in the tent , squishy squishy .

So nice too drive in disco minus turtle, even the car feels excited to use its strength and suspension for itself only , altho we will miss the turtle and the luxury living space it provides.

The road is heavily corrugated , i mean seriously its like 30cm deep ruts for miles at a time , a few creek crossings which appear on right after tight corners . Its a long mad road that Kalumbaru rd , but WOW with a capital W , palm tree lined, twisty road and just a buzz to actually be on it , we hit the plateau turn off and after a very cool creek crossing, we love a good / any creek crossing the deeper the better, all windows down for a good look , i love to look in my revision mirror at olivers face hanging out the window watching the car work its bumpy way over , and looking down the river , he looks so excited and interested every time, never misses one . I know cooper will be the same on his side. It makes me smile and i know the boys will never forget these moments.

We cross the king edward creek to check out the king edward campsite grounds, and they are awesome ! if we had the turtle we would have stayed there a couple of days ... next time because we will be back ! The mitchell plateau track is again very windy, steep, sloping, bumpy, rocky, and narrow , most people drive carefully but you get the odd hero who drives around blind corner foot to the metal.. tossers i think they are known as amongst most campers.

After a long drive we arrive finally firewood collected , the camping ground is full !! we manage to nab a spot right next to the heli pad, which is good and bad we think , but then its actually ok , and really exciting to watch them do their thing , there are 4 of those whirring birds , and they create a " happening feeling in this remote location " exciting and we are going in one .

We just hang out and enjoy being there , we eat a dodgey tinned pasta meal with cups of tea , and crash all tired .

All excitement in the morning , we get ready , pack a picnic , and head for our weigh in and briefing for the flight , we must wear life jackets as we are crossing the ocean .

The walk to mitchell falls is beautiful beyond words , you just feel so privileged to be there, it bigger than us , something about it, we cross little merten falls and check out some very interesting aboriginal art , and then onto too big merten falls, which is stunning, however it feels sad, and nature at her most powerful as just a week or two before a lady had slipped somehow and feel to the bottom and sadly passed away , nobody is going near the edge at all .

We walk and we walk and we walk and we all coax cooper his legs are only little and he really is doing  so well on these challenging walks .

Finally the falls !! they are incredible , nothing can describe them you need to go there yourself , so i wont even try .

We spend a couple of hours, picnicking which we love , the boys play in the creeks above the falls and tony and i morph into lizards and just laze around on the rocks , BLISS .

OMG finally its 2Pm chopper pick up time , woo hoo , we life jacket up , and climb aboard our pilot is lovely and makes us all feel good about the trip , ............we go up and over the falls , mind blown we all are , we cruise over the land where there still to this day is evidence of tonys dad work everywhere it seems,  to the coast we can see Malcolm island in the distance , we go over the coastline and circle the island , and circling that beautiful island in a helicopter takes your breath away, i mean landing on a deserted island is pretty exciting .....exit helicopter , and we all scramble literally scramble to reach kens cairn , was pretty hard to get to it , but we made it and took some pictures and had some time just to be there. the island is postcard perfect.

Then the mad scramble back to the chopper , ollie had a quick over excited puke of his carrots for lunch before some family shots, and the pilot tells ollie just vomit out the open doors if u have too , heehee he was such a good sport about a kid puking outside his moving chopper, thankfully ollie recovers and enjoys the flight back, both boys agree , best day of their lives , awesome !

Time to head back the next day , the disco is hammered on the way back , spare tyre falls off , back door breaks , but it is nothing compared with other peoples carnage , we feel lucky , but need some repairs in town , so we pick up turtle , camp another gorgeous night at drysdale station and head to kunanurra , where we will sort car , pick up our dear friend lesley , re stock and head back onto the Gibb to do El questro and its gorges and check out home valley station, do a horse trek .

Picked up some stray blonde vet type girl wndering the streets of Kununurra(Lesley to her friends!), before settling into a 4 day wait on car repairs while residing lakeside at one of Kununurras campgrounds. Repairs complete we headed back onto the Gibb River Road to El Questro where we managed to score one of their private riverside camps for the next 5 days.First night had a beautiful spot with great views down the pentecoste river to the Cockburn Ranges, however no water access at all, so next day day managed to convince the station staff , with a select tale of half truths to lets us onto a much nicer true river side camp. 

Next day whole family with Lesley in tow, hiked into Emma Gorge and a very cold swim at Emma Falls.

Next couple of days very relaxing with the boys finding new "bases" and going very feral. Had a very close encounter with one of the stations young cows that wondered into camp and kept a very close eye on everything we did from reading , eating, washing up , till we found her soft spot....raisin bread.. courtesy of Lesley.. that sent her into a frenzy!!Not suprisingly she was back religiously at breakfast time for the next few days. Next couple of days was spent soaking in the warmth of Zebedee Springs and exploring the rugged spectacular beauty of El Questro Gorge.At El Questro Gorge after probably our most arduous hike and scramble thru perhaps the Kimberlies most spectacular gorge,and at the very, very end pool below a waterfall, Ollie runs into one of his class mates prom Palmyra primary school on his school holidays from Perth. Dexter and Finn with his parents Nat and Toby(obviously extremely hyper intelligent fellow Land Rover adventurers), are up on a prolonged holiday in the Kimberlies, also staying at El Questro, and the girls head off the next day for a 2-3 hour horse ride,( while Tony contemplates the many ways to fit horses into dogfood cans..obviously their only good use!).Following the horse ride, we shot back into Kununurra, dropped off Lesley into the capable hands of 3-4 young oiled up buff back packers, before heading off eastward into the cane toad infested wilds of the Northern Territory and hopefully a pleasant stay in Darwin.

Once again there are hundreds of much nicer images, however being limited to 5MP means the majority will have to wait for the 15 hour slide shows when were back in Perth ...ha,ha..

MASH style Heliworks base at Mitchell Falls Campground

Top pools at Little Mertens Falls

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Aboriginal cave paintings at Little merten Falls

Big Merten Falls

Mitchell Falls top pools

One of the 4 helicopters that service the Mitchell Falls area landing at Mitchell Falls

Jo and Cooper wading the top pools

Mitchell Falls at apparently its least dramatic, half way thru the dry season.Would be phenominal to see this during the wet,

itchell Falls heli stop!

A very excited Ollie and Coops en route to Malcolm Island

Malcolm Island in the distance,  very lucky considering Jo is navigating!!

western headland of Malcolm Island where Ken Malcolms ashes are inturned

beachfront heli pad in the sand.....the only way to travel to your own island! Ha ha  could get used to the Branson lifestyle!!

Tony's dad, Kens ashes under his cairn looking out westward towards Walsh Point

.I helped build this cairn back in 1982 with mum from local stones sourced on the island. There is still the bag of cement we brought out over 29 years ago sitting under a rock ledge, no bag just a solid mass of extra concrete;we came by boat then from the mining exploration camp....much nicer and easier to fly!!

Approaching to Mitchell Falls campsite landing strip

Lakeside Kununurra

Jo and Leslies office in Kununurra, suprisingly NOT a lot of constructive work was done.

Campsite view night 1 on El Questro Station, private riverside camp.

Emma Gorge Falls...cold!,but with a bath sized thermal spring/pool to the right that would warm you back to mammalian temps...very considerate.

Pentecost River crosing..unfortunately not as deep as would have hoped

Pentecost River

There's a cow in our campsite! Breakfast cow visit at our 2nd riverside camp....very partial to raisin bread...dont worry we had 2 very experienced vets confirm that this is a normal Kimberley cow diet!!

Moonshine Pool ElQuestro, beautiful and totally deserted, could you ask for more