Summer Falls Walk at Conondale National Park

Post

Subscribe

I had seen lots of beautiful photos of walks to the base of Summer Falls at Conondale and knew it was part of the Conondale Range Great Walk, but the photos of day walks made the walk up to the falls rock hopping along the creek and scaling up the cliffs pretty scary and I never thought I would get there. I did recently see an easy 13-kilometre day walk to Summer Falls being run by my bushwalking club so I signed up for it.



It was a really nice easy walk on a track through the rainforest with lots of beautiful flowering native trees and bushes and flitting birds.





We left Brisbane at 7 am and drove to the start of our walk along Sunday Creek Forestry Road. We had 3 cars and did a car shuffle by leaving one car at our finish spot. That driver then jumped in one of the other two cars. At the end of our walk the three drivers went back to where we parked the other two cars and drove back to pick the rest of us up for the drive home.





Peter, our leader had done the walk previously. Usually, people get to Summer Falls when doing the whole Conondale Great Walk over 3 to 4 days, or do the harder rock hop up the creek.



I always like to explore new areas I’ve never been to before. I had previously done the walk from Booloomba Creek day area to Artists Cascades about three times which is part of the Great Walk. I have also done another walk to the Mt Allen Tower.



We walked through a beautiful rainforest and saw lots of gorgeous native flowering plants and heard lots of birdcalls. I recognized a few calls. Someone once told me on a walk the call of the noisy pitta bird sounds like “walk to work”. I’ve never seen this pretty coloured bird, but have often heard its call in places like Mt Cordeaux and on other walks around South East Queensland. I heard it on this walk.





After about 9 kilometres we came out of the rainforest to Summer Falls campsite where we stopped for some lunch. There are toilets and a tank here and a seat in memory of Mark Ricketts 1955-2011 who was “always watching over the Conondales”. Mark fought to save the Conondales from development. He was a lover of nature and worked hard to save it.
Seat dedicated to Mark Ricketts



You would need to treat the water if camping there. The campsite is only accessible by walking in. Summer Falls walkers’ camp is located in a picturesque setting bordered by brush box (Lophostemon confertus), tallowwood (Eucalyptus microcorys) and white mahogany (Eucalyptus acmenoides). Most people who camp there do it as part of the Conondale Great Walk.



There are six campsites with a maximum number of people who can stay at each site as 4. The Summer Falls Walker’s camp is 43 kilometres from the Great Walk entrance and 15 kilometres one way from Tallowwood Walker’ camp.

Creek crossing

There was a platform seat at each campsite. When we were there, there was a group of young people setting up camp. Campsites need to be booked through National Parks. There is no phone coverage. It was great to see young people out enjoying nature.

Summer Falls campsite

Summer Falls campsite toilet

I had read some campers in the past had been terrorized by wild pigs, but I think that was a while ago, so hopefully they aren’t a problem now.

Staghorn and Elkhorn

There were lots of leeches along the track climbing onto our shoes and legs, but I think most of us got them off before they attached. No one got any ticks on this walk.



There were some tracks down to pools at the Falls, but none of us went down on this trip. We did see some campers though who had climbed down for a swim. I have read the best way down to the swimming holes is to the left of the falls and it isn’t recommended to climb down to the ones on the right.

After lunch, we headed back to the car we had left on the way in. It was a lovely, easy walk through a beautiful cool ancient rainforest, with cascading waterfalls, clear creeks, tall trees, open forest, birds, native flowering plants and great views.

I must go back one day and do the whole 54-kilometre Great Walk.



Click here for the map.

#walks
#camping
%wnsunshinecoast
#outdoor