Bushwalk Australia

by **digbyg** » Sun 15 May, 2016 6:53 pm

An easy day walk close to Cairns. The main waterfall and pool is about 11/2 hours casual walking from the main road following an obvious footpath along a disused four wheel drive track. The start is at a locked gate next to the entrance of the Hartley Creek Retreat (the old croc farm) and the path initially follows their boundary fence, swinging around the property and gently climbing a ridge running parallel to the creek. A track junction about 30 minutes in has the right hand path dropping down to the creek, while the left continues for another 15 minutes to where the creek forms a series of cascades on smooth granite. Quite pretty and worth an explore. The track keeps going over several ups and downs before reaching the pool at the base of the main fall in about another 30 minutes.
Just passed the cascades, there appears to be an access track to the closed quaid road used by trail bikes and quads that are causing some erosion and destruction around downed trees. I didn't explore to confirm this.
The area appears to have had some mining in the past as there is considerable soil disturbance and old metal rubbish lying around. The first half of the track is on old eroded granite while after the cascades you are on sedimentary, probably schists, so the metamorphic zone between may have interested people at some time. The forest is open dry woodland with mostly stringybark, grasstrees and cycads, with melaleuca along the creeks.
I heard about this one from a friend, but I haven't seen it written up anywhere else, so I thought I'd throw it in here and see if anyone else knows more.

by **ofuros** » Sun 15 May, 2016 8:59 pm

Thanks for sharing that info, digbyd

by **johnw** » Mon 16 May, 2016 1:11 am

Thanks for sharing digbyg. I did the walk to Hartleys Creek Falls in 2012 during a family trip to Port Douglas and your notes align with my experience as best as I can recall (discounting a few problems finding the start). At the time I also noticed the signs of past activity, maybe mining, although wasn't sure. I remember taking a dip at the cascades to cool off on the way back. I found walk notes for it in the book Tropical walking tracks : Port Douglas, the Daintree & Cooktown by Kym Dungey & Jane Whytlaw. Don't know if it is still readily available but I believe they produced a later edition of walks in the region (and which I thought I had bought on a subsequent visit but I can't find either book in my disorganised collection ATM :roll: