Day 78 Sunday 9th September Mitchell Falls

We had a big breakfast in preparation for our 7km return hike into the falls. The girls coped extremely well and we were surprised by the terrain which was not terribly difficult and flat. The hike took us through some interesting places like Merton's Creek Crossing - Little Merton's Falls - Art Sites - Big Merton's Falls and other interesting places.  We arrived at the top of the falls which was a spectacular site, with amazing views over the surrounding escarpment . After a swim in the upper pools we hiked on further past the chopper landing pad and  around to the base of the falls to take in the stunning views looking back up at the 4 tiered waterfall. We all agreed that after two days driving it was well worth the effort, something we had been looking forward to since we flew over here 8 years ago!! It was great to get up close this time. After this we hiked back to the rapids at the top of the falls and had lunch and more cooling off in the crystal clear water. We then hiked back in the 40 deg heat  to a small waterfall and lagoon for another cooling off. We chilled out here for a while as it was lovely and shady and our campsite was  dry and dusty  with no water and little shade. We arrived back at our camp feeling pretty exhausted so we sat and replenished our fluids for a good hour. By this time it was 4.30pm so we took our happy hour drinks and headed for a small brook (Merton's Creek) about 300 metres from our campsite to cool off again! Back at camp we lit our fire and managed to cook all our dinner in the billy, an accomplishment in itself. We ended our perfect day sitting around our campfire exchanging stories with our neighbours and toasting marshmallows. J 

 Mertons Creek right next to Big Mertons Falls

Big Merton's

Top Of Mitchell Falls

Top Of Mitchell Falls (Note on this picture the height of the polished rock to the to left side. This shows how power full this area must be in the wet season where this river is upto 5m deep approx in this area.

 Big Merton Falls

The swimming area

Just near the Hellipad

 Mitchell Falls

 Mitchell Falls

Little Merton's Falls

 Bottom of little Merton's Falls where we cooled off on the return.

Camp Fire and Billy Cooking

Day 77 Saturday 8th September Drysdale Station - Mitchell Falls

This morning we packed up before the heat and  we all had an early morning  “skinny dip” in the gorgeous turquoise  miners pool; we had the place to ourselves and this was the only form of water there!!!   The girls were at first a bit reluctant, but then agreed it was exhilarating……while being “a little bit  naughty”!!   We drove back to the station and left our van on site, then headed onto Mitchell Falls. The road from Drysdale Station to the turn off to the falls was a little better than the previous, however it still took us 2 ½ hours to complete 99kms. We took the turnoff to the falls and found the road deteriated. Even  though the road from here to the campground was  in the process of being graded it still took us 3 ½ hours to do 85kms. By the time we arrived  at 5pm Jason was well and truly ready for a beer and the rest of us had headaches from all the corrugations! 

 Miners Pool Camping

Mum off to the rescue!!!

A Dingo just near Mitchell Falls

This was a sign approx 20km from the camping area, w have never seen a sign that is so relevant!

Day 76 Friday 7th September HV8 – Drysdale Station

Packed up early and were on the road again by 8am after topping up the fuel (most expensive so far at $ 3.00 a litre!!!)  Drove through the bad section again and onto more rough bits of road. Approx. 80kms in we punctured our first tyre. Approx. 20kms down the road we punctured our 2^nd and last spare tyre!! This was a major blow as we still had 137kms to get to the  next station with no spares. Whilst Jason was changing the tyre a truck stopped to see if we were ok, after Jason explained it was our 2^nd flat in as much as 100kms he offered us a spare tyre which was in his support vehicle following! Such a generous offer which we gladly accepted, with instructions to return it to Drysdale Station if unused “Tell Annie it’s Kirks’ tyre” were the instructions!!!,  so on we “crawled” very carefully along  the rest of our trek. Finally we arrived at Drysdale Station  after completing the last 59kms on the Kalumbaru Road over deep corrugations in 3 ½ hours!!!!  The mechanic at Drysdale Station was well stocked with new tyres (for obvious reasons) and luckily they had our size. While the mechanic fixed our spares we all had a nice cool drink in the beer garden at the station. We then left for the miners pool campground  about 2kms down the road and had a quick swim before set up.

 Tyre No 1

Tyre No 2

Day 75 Thursday 6th September HV8

Jason woke this am and went straight over to the mechanics who told him one of the guys had gone into Kununurra to the dealer to see if he could change their mind!!  We  weren’t holding much hope so sat tight waiting, cooling off under a cool shower at regular intervals. Later in the afternoon when Jason went to check on the progress of the parts, the mechanics said they had the parts, they had apparently rung Toyota head office and complained about the dealer in Kununurra, which had finally worked, so they got the parts. By 5 pm this afternoon we had our car back and could look forward to getting on with our trip again tomorrow!!

Day 74 Wednesday 5th September HV8

Jason and Lucy decided to make the most of our time at HV8 and went fishing this am while Leanne, Ava and Olivia spent the morning at the pool. In the afternoon after doing some school with the girls Jason went over to check on the parts for the car and was told by the mechanics that due the dealer in Kununurra wanting absolute monopoly of the work, they had refused to sell the spare parts we needed to them…..so here we were again.    .Arghhhhh…!!! He said he would look into other options in the morning, but we were stuck here again and to make matters worse the pool was shut for the next 3 days due to a chemical imbalance that needed to be rectified… 40 degree heat, nowhere to cool off and we couldn’t even drive anywhere to swim either as our car was up on the hoist……….5 very unhappy little vegemites L

Day 73 Tuesday 4th Sept HV8

Leanne and the girls got up early and packed up the van as Jason was expecting to have the car fixed and ready to go first thing.  He finally arrived around lunchtime. In the meantime the girls and Leanne had their own drama as the door handle to the van broke and the key alone would not work!! They managed to lock themselves out of the van a couple of times in between using a rope to pull the lever up,  but found by hoisting one of the little girls  through one of the high canvas windows up the top they could get in eventually !!!  Luckily while Jason was still in Kununurra he bought a replacement. Once Jason arrived back we packed up the few remaining things and left at 2pm for Drysdale station . 30kms into our 237km  trip  on a very hard, rocky and corrugated dirt road Jason stopped to check how the car was handling it to find a leak in one of the rear tyres. He set about changing it while Leanne checked out the van. The van did not cope well on this part of the road, as the fridge door had come open despite being wedged shut and a milk carton had leaked all over the floor. As well as this a cupboard door had totally come off its hinges from the sheer shaking caused by the corrugations.!!  Once the van was ready to go, While Jason was changing the wheel he started to tighten the nut on the wheel stud. When he had completed all six then went to tighten them all, (one of the nuts would not move. He then tried to loosen and restart it and the wheel stud snapped off!!! We decided go back to HV8 as the next station was about 100kms and it did not offer tyre repairs. Once back at HV8 the mechanics phoned  Kununurra to see what parts they had in stock, luckily the Toyota dealer had some wheel nuts in stock, so it was decided the mechanics would pick them up tomorrow when they were in town. There was not much else to do but go back to our van and set up for another night back here!

Day 72 Monday 3rd Sept Home Valley HV8

Jason left at 6am for Kununurra to get the air conditioning looked at in the car as we had noticed on Saturday it was not working. Leanne and the girls stayed at the campsite and got ready to pack up in case the air was fixed   reasonably quickly. After this they passed the time at the pool… Jason text during the day with updates re the car…..A pipe from the dryer in the air conditioning had snapped and the air conditioning technician was looking for a replacement part. When this was not available the broken pipe was taken to an engineering company to be repaired, unfortunately the company affiliated with the air conditioning techs could not fix it. This was not good news, so Jason began chasing up the part around a few places in Melbourne  as apparently this is where all their  parts come from. After no luck with this, in a last ditch effort he found another engineering company in Kununurra who fixed the pipe. Upon taking it back to air conditioning  techs, they discovered the pipe was not air tight, so back he went to the engineers for more repairs…. Once this was done it was back to the air conditioning techs who again found a leak!!! By this stage it was 5pm and everything had shut down, all this was done by Jason in 38 degree heat, some of it by foot as the car had to be left there….  After calling Leanne with an update he was persuaded to stay overnight in Kununurra and return to engineers in the morning instead of battling with the rough road back to HV8 again!!