INTRODUCTION

The Mitchell River in the SW corner of Admiralty Gulf provides an interesting and challenging navigation exercise to find a course through the maze of rocks and sandbars protecting the deep upper reaches of the river. Some of these are clearly shown on the Air Photo of the River. The Mitchell River can be accessed on the incoming tide from secure anchorages at Parry Harbour, Crystal Head, Osborne Islands or Krait Bay. 

WHAT TO EXPECT

The entrance from Walmsley Bay is deep and wide but beware of the reef and rocky island close off Pickering Point.  Approximately 8 miles inside the river mouth there is a secure anchorage 300m downstream of Middle Rocks (1a on map and left). 

The large charter boats do not venture further upstream, as the next 3 miles is strewn with many drying rocks and sandbars. 

The reward for surveying a path at low tide and traversing this area at high tide is the beautiful anchorage at the mouth of Surveyors Creek (1b and photo right).

TIDE LEVELS

The tides at Middle Rocks are about 0.8 times the height of the tides at Port Warrender and about half an hour later.  At the upper tidal rockbar the tides appear to be about 0.6 times the height and about an hour earlier.

The Mitchell River is a popular spot for small crocs sunning themselves during winter and for much larger crocs, such as this one warming itself on the mud bank (left) in Surveyors Creek.  This other big croc (right) minus a tail must have been in a pretty awesome fight as his (or her) total length was still about 3.3m without the tail! 

As the tide rises the incoming water pours over the rockbar and forms loud raging rapids that can be clearly seen (left) and heard from the boat anchored 200m downstream.  To access the lower falls and freshwater swimming holes, motor over the rapids when they settle down, and tie up in a safe spot, where the resident croc (right) keeps an eye on the inflatable dinghy until you return about 3 hrs later.

Half a mile upstream of the rockbar, there are three sets of waterfalls with magnificent swimming holes over a 3km stretch of rugged rocky gorges.  A strenuous 1 hour combination of hiking and clambering over huge boulders reveals an interesting pattern of circular holes in the rocks (right) at the upper falls on the edge of the Mitchell Plateau.  From here it would take about 2 days to hike 10km to the "real" Mitchell Falls and return to the dinghy.

If you have any energy left after returning to the tidal rockbar, Seabird Ck (left) has ample space to relax and read a book, collect water, do the washing, check out some rock art, have a bar-b-q or observe the small marsupials scurrying amongst the rocks, the seabirds overhead or the crocs on the rocks and in the water. 

Oh!  By the way.  The fishing is generally pretty good in the Mitchell River.  This barra caught in 2006  was 36lb and several centimetres over the magical 1m mark, (107cm to be precise), and other big barra which were caught in the river in 2003, 2004 and 2005 were just a couple of centimetres short of 1 metre.  These fish were too big to eat, so we released them to carry on breeding or be caught and released again.