First light & we were up with the birds again so we could get an early start up to the Mitchell Falls.  We had breakfast & were on the road just as the sun was rising, around 6.15am.  What a road, 82km of corrugations, rocky outcrops, rocks, steep water crossings, hills, washouts, ruts, narrow, windy & dusty, you name it.  Absolutely no respite at all, rough all the way.  This was a real bugger of a road.  We reached the falls a little after 9am, that’s right, nearly 3 hours to do 82km.  On the way we came across a 4WD that had hit a big hole at the top of the hill & ripped the suspension off on the left front wheel & folded the front wheel under the car, so it was sitting forlornly half way down the hill at the side of the road.  On the way home the owner was fixing it.

We decided to catch a helicopter to the top of the Mitchell Falls & walk back the 4.3 km, as luck would have it, we were on the Bell Jetranger helicopter at 9.30am for the 6 minute ride to the falls.  The view was fantastic, we could see all the way to the Indian Ocean & the pilot gave a great description of all the watercourses & falls.  We were very fortunate that the falls were running well as there was a late end to the wet season, usually at this time of year they are dry.  The Mitchell Falls certainly are a great site with the four drops over 80m.  The temperature was pretty hot as we wandered around looking at the falls, so on the walk back we had a swim at the top of the Big Merten Falls in the pool before the drop, it was lovely & refreshing with the bonus of no freshwater crocodiles bothering us.

The walk was interesting as the path wandered through different plant varieties, bird life & great big rocks.  We had our lunch in a small rainforest area under some fig trees.  The next stop was near Little Merten Falls where we again saw some Bradshaw aboriginal art with some more recent paintings over the top of them.  We got back to the car park around 2pm.  It was damn hot & the rocks reflected even more heat it was a smart move to do the helicopter ride up.  The trip back to our campsite at King Edward River was just as bad as the trip up, our average speed was 33km/hr. If the road would have been half decent we could have enjoyed the lovely Eucalypt & Livistonia Palm forest.  It wasn’t just bone rattling corrugation but swaying from side to side as Ron tried to avoid sharp rocks, big rocks, pot holes & at times the car would plane across.  You couldn’t talk from the noise.  Yes, the Mercedes rattles & shakes, groans & moans too under such conditions (most probably it was us groaning & moaning, not the car).  We had beautiful scenery but it is stupid to put your vehicle & yourselves through nearly 500 km return trip on a mother (or better still father because mothers could never be that bad) of all bad roads like this one – a card from the falls would have sufficed.    We could hardly walk when we got out of the car.   Sue & I ran out of colourful Hungarian adjectives about the road & we were too exhausted to laugh.

Back at camp we chatted to the duty rangers & they said the temperature reached 40C today, its still winter.  Tereza whipped up a delicious pumpkin soup & lasagne (from home frozen) & this time we washed it down with a very good 15 year old white.