Gap Creek Falls

Location: Main Range National Park, South East QLD
Date: 3rd May, 2015
Distance: 9.4 km
Time: 3 h 50 min

Sometimes a bushwalk, through some devilry, will inspire you to immediately toss it into the 'never visit again' box. Such was the case for Gap Creek Falls, a walk I did many years ago with my family who had, together, vowed never to return again. Today, dad and I decided to forget our previous experience and just set out to enjoy another walk at Main Range NP.

Our prior reasoning had been pretty valid - it had been a long, hot walk, with a dry (non-existent) waterfall at the end, followed by an endless slog back uphill to the car park. And so it was deemed uninteresting at best and vaguely malicious at worst.

However, during recent years, I have kept this walk in the back of my mind, waiting for a day with the perfect conditions for a return trip. To avoid the heat, it would need to be overcast. To enjoy the falls, there would need to have been some recent solid rain. The rain would need to have been solid enough to fill the creek's small catchment area, but also recent enough to make waterfall walks elsewhere on the Scenic Rim unappealing due to the potential for flooded creek crossings.

This day finally arrived today.

One of the great things about the Main Range is that every visit is unique; if the weather is fine, clear views stretch to all horizons; if the weather is poor, low cloud hangs about the peaks all day and paints a totally different scene. We were greeted by one of a myriad variations of the latter when we arrived at Fassifern Valley Lookout a few minutes from the start of this walk.

Enjoying the view from Fassifern Valley Lookout

Mt Greville and Mt Alford emerge from the mist

From here it was all downhill to the falls. After crossing a beautiful rainforested gully and a jumble of branches from a recent tree fall, we entered open forest dominated by grass trees. After the very heavy rain this week there were many fungi out on display.

Blue berries of some description

After a couple of creek crossings that required some care, the track curved around the northern side of a ridge offering views of a bonus waterfall, forested slopes leading to farmland in the valley and, as we curved further around, Gap Creek Falls itself.

Bonus waterfall! Nobody said there would be two...

Fassifern Valley from much closer to the valley floor than before

Gap Creek Falls, flowing richly

Last time we were here, the falls had been completely dry. Nothing but parched rocks and dying plants. Today it was hard to imagine anything of the sort, watching water from Gap Creek rocketing down the valley.

With the overcast conditions the top of Gap Creek Falls was a very pleasant place to break at. We wandered around a bit, but were limited somewhat in our explorations by the volume of water in the creek. The rocks were very slippery and it was obvious that one wrong slip here could have serious consequences, as the rapidly flowing water plummeted 100 m to the valley floor just metres away.

Unfortunately the low cloud meant we missed views of Mt Cordeaux and Mt Mitchell during the return walk, but it kept us cool and hardly matched the "long slog" description given last time.

Final verdict: great walk under the right conditions.