We were up early, caffeinated and packed up not long after the sun had come up as we wanted to head out to Mitchell Falls campground and find a campsite. The road out to the Falls has been described to me over the years as one of the roughest roads around. However there has been a lot of work done recently and the main road out towards Port Warrender was in pretty good condition. It wasn't until we turned off towards the campground and Falls that it got a bit rougher but even so that last 16 Kms or so wasn't too bad.
Shane found a nice spot right beside the helicopter take off area and radioed back to me that we had a spot so I filled in the camping forms and paid as I came in the gate.
It was about 8:30 am. We sat down and had a drink, then I wandered across to helicopter office and booked us both on a flight up to the Falls around 10:15 am and a flight back for me at 12:30 pm, Shane was going to walk back. It cost $150 per person each way. So back at camp we got ourselves ready, put the swimming gear and lunch in a pack and then headed back to the helicopters. It was our first time in a helicopter and before we left they gave us a safety talk and then we loaded in. It was a five seater copter with just Shane and I in it so we had good seats facing forward with no doors. This worked out great for taking photos.
It was really quite smooth and both Shane and I spent so much time taking photos that we didn't get worried by the fact that the only thing holding us in was the seat belt. The view was stunning and as there were a few copters already on the landing space we got a bit of extra flight time waiting for them to clear. Then it was down onto the rocks at the top of the Falls and we climbed out, having survived our first copter ride.
We then wandered around the rocks to get a good view of the Falls for some more photos, before Shane headed off to explore some caves and I found the swimming hole. This was an excellent place to go swimming as there was a little waterfall that swirled around and gave you a nice little boost down stream.
I got back to the take off point and caught up with Shane again and he headed off for a swim and then the walk back. There were two other people for the flight back and I ended up in the front passenger seat for the trip. It wasn't nearly as good for taking photos but it was great to see out, especially as it was glass under my feet which looked a bit weird. I walked back to camp and had a very lazy afternoon tidying a few things up in the camper, reading a book and having a little snooze. Shane got back pretty early, around 2:45 pm and he looked pretty worn out. He'd had a few swims along the way and was dying for a coffee. After that we had an even more lazy afternoon and eventually lit the fire as the sun was going down. We both cooked over the fire, steak wraps. Once again we sat around the fire for awhile discussing how much we enjoyed the copter flight before having an early night in bed.
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