We’d been on our Gibb River Road adventure for about a week before we arrived at the Kalumburu Road. This is about half way along the Gibb River Road and is the road that takes you to the Mitchell Plateau Road and to the community of Kalumburu, about as far north as you can get by car in Western Australia.
Turning off we headed towards Drysdale station, where we camped for three nights. A lovely spot, it had a bar with some of the best burgers we’ve ever tasted and a short drive away was the Drysdale River. Shallow but clear, cool and great for a swim. More importantly they had washing machines which were given a good workout with a weeks worth of sweaty, dusty clothes that needed cleaning! It was a chance to rest, recuperate and find out more information about the Kalumburu and Mitchell Plateau Road conditions. As chance would have it, they had started grading the Mitchell Plateau Road the day we arrived at Drysdale. Notoriously rough and corrugated, it can be difficult and long. We were a little worried whether our camper trailer would make the distance but after speaking to a few people who had taken their trailers up we were reassured that we would be fine as long as we took it slow and steady.

So three days later we headed off into the unknown to see the Mitchell Plateau and the Mitchell Falls. The road was slow going, taking about three hours to cover eighty five kilometres, but we took it easy and made it unscathed in time to set up camp, book a chopper flight for the next day and walk up to Little Mertens Falls for a swim.

The next day we set off on the four kilometre walk to Mitchell Falls nice and early. It was lovely and shady walk that passed the impressive Big Mertens waterfall, the Lily Pond and some aboriginal rock art sites along the way. Arriving at Mitchell Falls we were blown away by the sheer size of the falls, walking around for about an hour to view it from as many different angles as we could. We had a swim in the shallow water at the top of the falls and cooled ourselves down, the bottom of the falls is off limits due to it’s cultural significance to the local people as well as the presence of saltwater crocodiles.

We decided to make the most of what we knew could be once in a lifetime experience and splurge on a helicopter flight that picked us up from the falls and took us on a 18 minute scenic flight across the plateau, to the JCR Falls up the Mitchell River and back over The Mitchell Falls returning us to our campsite. Needless to say it was one of the most amazing things we have done on this trip so far, the scenery from the air was beyond belief and the experience of flying in a chopper itself was just as exhilarating. We arrived back at our camp with massive smiles across all of our faces!

The next day saw us head back along the Mitchell Plateau Road to continue north along Kalumburu Road. Along the way we stopped in at King Edward river for a swim and lunch.

Our destination was Honeymoon Bay about 30km north of Kalumburu. After watching a doco about it few yeas back, Phil was keen to see Honeymoon bay and sample the oysters off the rocks. We were not disappointed. From the moment we pulled up to our campsite we were greeted by the friendliest bunch of people, who were more than happy to share their favourite place with us. One morning Phil and Lockie were taken out fishing and to get oysters by a long time resident. He took them out through the mangroves and onto the rocks. Phil came back with a bucket of oysters and Lockie caught his first mangrove jack.

Another couple of regulars to the bay, offered to take us out fishing at sunset on their boat. Of course we all jumped at the chance and had a great time. We caught heaps of fish including a whopping great cod and had a lovely time watching the sun go down over the ocean.

We were so glad we decided to go to Honeymoon Bay, we stayed three days, and were still reluctant to leave at the end. Not only was it a beautiful place, it was also filled with great people who went out of their way to make sure we loved it as much as they did. We will definitely be back one day.
For now it’s back to Drysdale station for a night before heading back off along the remainder of the Gibb River Road.
Every day is STILL the best day ever!