Tuesday was meant to be our big explore day. We booked the Mitchell Falls Discoverer all-day tour with Aviair. This involved a 5:15am pickup from our accommodation and then being driven to the airport for a weigh-in and a safety demonstration. 

We were slightly late in leaving as the pilots were waiting to see what the clouds were doing out at the falls. We were given the all clear and then set off for our two-hour flight. 

The plane went up the river, over Wyndham, and across to Berkeley River Lodge. While we were out that way I could easily spot giant estuarine crocodiles in the water blow, bobbing along, waiting to catch a Barra. So cool even from our safe height. 

We then got to see King George Falls, which are WA’s tallest waterfalls. Due to the season, they were mostly trickles but still pretty. I think it’s awesome that there are two waterfalls and in time they’re going to carve new gorges around this one chunk of rock. 

We then flew on to Mitchell Falls Plateau. The plan was to land, take a helicopter out to the start of the hike, walk up the river for an hour, past waterfalls, and stop for lunch and a swim at Mitchell Falls. We’d then take a helicopter back to the airstrip, then fly back to Kununurra, landing at about 3pm. 

Unfortunately as we got close it was clear that the clouds weren’t going to play ball. They’d nicely covered the plateau and the pilots didn’t think it safe to fly our 14-seater into it, so they turned us around a flew us back to Kununurra. It was disappointing but not upsetting, safety first and all that. We’ll just have to go another time. 

We landed back at the town at 10am, and returned to our accommodation. Glen crawled back into bed, while Narelle and I went for coffee, a bite to eat, and a swim in the pool. 

Afterwards, all three of us went to the Hoochery, the oldest legal still in Western Australia. Thankfully, they produce gin as well as rum, and serve delicious barramundi tacos. I got a paddle of cocktail samples — rum and peach iced tea, gin and elderflower tonic, passion fruit mule — and we sat outside passing the time. The weather was getting warm and humid, and it felt like a storm was gathering. We forewent a trip to the nearby small Mirima National Park because of the heat and instead went to do the Ivanhoe Crossing. 

The Ivanhoe Crossing is a water crossing over the Ivanhoe River. It’s not raging but the rush of water still gave us pause. Watching a few people do it, getting advice, and then giving over to Narelle’s can-and-will-do spirit, she drove us across. 

It was easy. I drove us back (literally you go to one side, turn around, and come back), then Glen drove us back across and Narelle back. Achievement unlocked!

We returned to the accommodation and chilled out for a bit (I think I fell asleep on the couch, waking up to Glen talking outside to a registrar on the phone), then got ready for sunset drinks and dinner at the Pump House Restaurant. 

The Pump House is literally an old Pump House, decommissioned in the 1970s and converted into a restaurant with an outdoor deck and a view over Lake Kununurra and the Ord River. 

We got there before the sun went down just after 5, drank our cocktails, and watched the fruit bats winging their way off to their hunting grounds. I have a bit of a fish lesson to a woman standing next to me at the railing as catfish and archer fish congregated below. (I was wearing my El Questro shirt which seems to fool people into thinking I’m speaking with any sort of authority).

Dinner was delicious, scallops and zucchini flowers and (yet more) barramundi. We were all done by 8pm, probably earlier, and went home ready for bed. 

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