Sat 7th Sept – Drysdale Station and camping on the King Edward River

We left at 9.00am and set off for Drysdale Station. This is on a road that turns North from Gibb River Rd and goes to Kalumburu, an Aboriginal settlement on the North coast. It also goes to the Mitchell Plateau and Falls. Last year, Rodger and I saw a DVD about this place and it's very beautiful. Naturally, we thought we would visit it when we're up here but as we've been travelling, it's been a bit of a bye word for a really difficult road, requiring a very hardy 4 wheel drive, so we resigned ourselves to not being able to go. We decided we'd go as far as Drysdale, see what the road's like, ask people who have just come down what it's like further up and then decide if we can go up.

We reached Drysdale at 11.00am and Rodger sat down to chat with an older guy there called Otto. He said this was the very best time to go to Mitchell Falls as the road was being graded and the first 80kms was done. He also told us about a good campIng spot on the King Edward River, about 2 hrs away. As it was so early, we filled up with diesel, had our lunch and set off. He was right, the road was amazingly good for unsurfaced and not at all like all the horror stories we've heard.

We made it to King Edward River at 2.00pm, and saw some great Aboriginal rock paintings, went to see the waterfall, had a swim and set up camp. As this was also by the River, Rodger decided to see if he could get us a couple of Sooty Grunters for dinner. He did catch 3, but sadly they were only little so he threw them back and we had tinned tuna for dinner!