Onward! To the Mitchell Plateau!

I love that the pursuit of birds can take you to some pretty incredible places. I especially love when those places coincide with natural spectacles such as canyons, unique rock formations, or waterfalls.
Sometimes these natural spectacles are the only reason you can easily access a bird that lives in extremely inaccessible areas.

Black Grasswren is only found in sandstone escarpments with large spinifex tussocks in far northwestern Australia. The majority of this species’ range is inaccessible. Grasswrens, in case you forgot, are cryptic, skulky endemic birds often found in the more remote corners of the country. Grasswrens are to birders what waterfalls are to tourists — highly sought after.
Speaking of natural spectacles such as waterfalls, there is the absolutely stunning Punamii-Uunpuu (Mitchell Falls) inside of Mitchell River National Park and it is because of these falls that there is a road to get into Black Grasswren habitat. I’d hate to use the phrase “killing two birds with one stone” but it’s rather fitting here – we could see a beautiful waterfall AND a beautiful rare bird from the same location!

The road to get in to the park is long and dusty and you drive through very remote Kimberly habitat. The Kimberley region is renowned for its unique and diverse landscapes and rich biodiversity. This area is also notoriously hot and temperatures mid-day can feel almost unbearable. The road has sections of extreme corrugations, and also requires driving across four rivers. In the wet season these rivers can rise several meters. (But in the wet season the road is closed altogether.) Australians sometimes refer to Port Warrender Road, the road to Mitchell Falls, as one of the worst roads in Australia. (From Kununurra you take Gibb River Road, then take the 4WD only Kalumburu Road, and then the challenging Port Warrender Road to the Mitchell Falls campground carpark.)

After almost a week in Perth we flew to Kununurra (#8 on map), the gateway town to some of the most remote areas in Australia. Originally we were planning on taking two days to drive to Mitchell Falls, so from Kununurra we started on the 6 hour drive to Drysdale station, where we planned to sleep for the night. But we were making such good timing that when we arrived at Drysdale station, instead of resting for the remainder of the day, we got our flat tire fixed (because of course we had a flat tire), ate a good meal at the restaurant, and continued onward. So far the road wasn’t bad at all. It helped that Roger was sleepier than usual and was quietly snoozing in his car seat for pretty much the entire drive. As it turns out he had a low-grade fever and was extremely lethargic so he wanted nothing more than to sleep and cuddle so we let him do both of those things as much as he wanted. If there ever was a day for him to want to sleep all day, this was it. Because he was so sleepy and uninterested in getting out to play, we made it all the way from Kununurra to Mitchell Falls campground in a single day. With an 11 month old. That is basically unheard of without a baby so I’m sure we are the first people to do it with one. We planned to keep a close eye on Roger, but as a result could travel further than originally planned. Honestly though, in the dry season the road is not bad at all. Corrugated, yes. Bumpy, yes. But wide and mostly flat, with any steep sections already paved. The four main river crossings were all very straight forward and easily doable without a snorkel. Here’s a few photos of the road:

We arrived at Mertens Campsite at 5:00 PM, set up our tent and fell asleep to the sounds of Blue-winged Kookaburras and Tawny Frogmouths. The frogmouths called so much so loudly that they kept us awake half the night. Or maybe that was Roger who woke up pretty much every hour on the hour to nurse and cuddle. He really was not feeling good and constantly wanted to be close to me. His fever also climbed to 102°F as we arrived in camp but seemed to be improving overnight. Someday Roger can tell his friends that he had a 102° fever on his very first night ever camping. (And my mother in law is going to read this and freak out that we took a sick baby into the outback! Don’t worry, the next day the fever broke and he was back to his happy self!)

The following morning we headed out in search of Black Grasswren habitat, aka sandstone boulders with spinifex tussocks. Apparently the traditional locations of finding Black Grasswren have changed over the years with the constant burning of the spinifex by the aboriginal peoples in the area, but the “newish” location is much closer to camp. The new “spot” is only about a 15 minute walk away from Mitchell Camp up the River View Trail.

I love when the bird you dedicate almost a week to tracking down (2 days driving in, 2 days of camping, 2 days driving out) hops out right away. We both breathed a huge sign of relief and watched as a single male Black Grasswren pranced between the rocks and grasses in the early morning sunlight. We had our main target by 0620 in the morning! Sitting on the sandstone boulders looking out at the unique habitat around me, I couldn’t help but feel so thankful to be sitting where I was.

It gets incredibly hot in the Kimberly and by 9AM be prepared to get your sweat on! Due to the heat, most bird activity quiets down. We walked to the end of the River View Trail, which is a very unpopular hike amongst most other people visiting the park because there’s no real scenic vista except to see the helicopter landing pad and no falls to see along the way. While on this trail we didn’t see a single other person but after such a successful morning we opted to walk to Little Mertens Falls, a small waterfall on the way up to the big falls. Along the way we saw a few other bird specialists of the area, like Kimberly Honeyeater and White-quilled Rock Pigeon. Truth be told, Kimberly Honeyeater is just as range-restricted as Black Grasswren, but the honeyeater is dull and gray so it doesn’t get the same kind of recognition. It’s also kind of common so there’s no thrill of the chase involved. But still, Kimberly Honeyeater is a very, very good bird!

We didn’t go further than Little Mertens Falls on our first day, but it was a great place to dip our toes in the water, eat some snacks, and rest in the shade of a large rock overhang. Thankfully Roger was feeling much better but we still wanted to take it easy.

The big attraction of course, and the reason there is a road to this remote area in the outback is Mitchell Falls, a beautiful four-tiered waterfall situated amongst rugged red, sandstone escarpments. Many, many moons ago, the Mitchell River carved its way through the sandstone producing one of the most iconic falls in all of Australia. Everyone who comes to this area is coming to see this sight (only a few die-hard birders would skip such an impressive natural wonder.)
There are helicopter tours offered so that visitors can see the impressive falls without having to do a strenuous hike to get there. What I noticed is that a lot of people who come to Mitchell Falls opt to take the 6 minute helicopter ride at least one direction. So sometimes visitors will hike the 4.3 kilometers in and then helicopter out for $190 (per person), but still plenty of people take the chopper both ways. What seems to be the least common method to visit the falls is to hike both in and then back out, which is of course what we did.
Technically the hike to the falls is rated as a “Grade 5” which is classified as difficult and only recommended for experienced bushwalkers. Grade 5 is supposed to mean “the tracks are likely to be less defined, rough, steep and have very few directional signs or track markers.” I hiked the entire 8 kilometers with an 11 month old baby strapped to my back and I still don’t think this hike deserves Grade 5 status. I’d call it a Grade 4 on a good day, although I do hike a lot and would consider myself reasonably healthy so take that for what it’s worth. I guess a few sections of this hike could be considered challenging because you have to climb over some boulders, but honestly what makes the hike hard is not the trail but the extreme heat. I also noticed that most people didn’t even begin their journey to see the falls until the sun was well up in the sky and temperatures along with it.

Ross and I opted to wake up early and hike in while it was still cool. We also hoped that by walking in most of the way in the dark we might find a rare possum but the only mammal we encountered was a sugar glider. We made it to the falls just after sunrise and had the whole place to ourselves for as long as we wanted. it felt so personal. We watched as the sunrise colors danced in the sky and as the sky turned to solid blue. We were already hiking back out when we finally passed a single other person. (Who seemed to be really impressed that we had gotten in and were already leaving AND we had a baby on our back before he even crossed the river.)

Mitchell Falls is a beautiful vista. The tiered waterfalls in the canyon with scenic emerald pools tumbling into the big crescendo truly is a sight to behold. As I sat there on a big rock in the shade of a cluster fig, I couldn’t help but be so grateful to, once again, be sitting where I was. I just love that chasing a bird brought me here. I would have never seen Mitchell Falls had it not been surrounded by such unique habitat that it boasts a slew of range restricted endemics. The plateau is said to be the only place in mainland Australia where not a single native species has gone extinct. It’s really special to visit a place that looks exactly the same since the beginning of time. On our walk back out we bumped into a few Monjon, the smallest species of rock-wallaby found in Australia. They were adorable and just as range-restricted as the birds we had come to find!

If you think this post is even half-decent, just wait, THERE’S MORE. I decided to do an entire Instagram video story detailing this entire adventure. It took me several hours to create and I mostly did it for myself because it’s fun to relive these experiences and I will watch the video over and over, but I still highly suggest checking it out. If a photo is worth a thousand words, surely a video story all about the adventure is worth ten thousand more! The views of the road to get in, a singing Black Grasswren, and the beautiful falls surely deserve it! I think you need to have Instagram in order to watch it, but it’s worth it, I promise! Click here for that and let me know what you think!

This birding occurred on 13 – 18 August, 2023. We dedicated a lot of time to these range-restricted endemics!
Sample eBird checklists: Black Grasswren, Black-backed Bittern in Kununurra