Birdwing Falls: Girringun NP
As Australia's highest single-drop waterfall, Wallaman Falls (268m) on Stoney Creek in Girringun National Park is a magnificent and awe-inspiring sight. It has great lookouts and a well-established tourist trail winding down to its base.
My first visit to the falls was more than twenty years ago. On that trip, I saw a silvery cascade high up in the catchment of a smaller creekline. It dropped dramatically through a hidden gorge before joining Stoney Creek a kilometre downstream. The suggestion of a waterfall, the possibility of another route down into Stoney Creek that might facilitate a loop circuit, the sense of mystery and adventure that emerged deep within my psyche combined to offer just the inspiration I needed to commence my journey of becoming a North Queensland waterfall chaser. Little did I know, however, that it would take more than a dozen visits over twenty years to find that mysterious waterfall.
The chase was on.
While the creekline was obvious on topographical maps, at ground level the rugged gorges and dense forest made things difficult. Cliffs are everywhere here; unseen dangers and hidden obstacles abound in the dense forest.
On my first attempt, I navigated down the creek's eastern side through thick rainforest and tangled vine thicket, before stumbling into an old drug lab, long since abandoned. Pots, plastic tubing, syringe kits and shade cloth lay strewn about the ground. I wondered if the lab I found was simply abandoned as police surveillance increased, or if the growers were worn down by relentless summer rains, eventually succumbing to the voracious appetites of the resident leeches. While shocked by such an unusual site and all the rubbish in this pristine and remote location, I also quietly admired the effort required to try to grow dope in such an outrageous spot. Surely such ingenuity and resourcefulness could have been put to better use? Says me, wandering through the forest looking for a waterfall that may not even exist.
It seems North Queensland's state forests and national parks were popular sites for growing dope. The Townsville to Cairns region during the 1980s had Queensland's highest number of reported drug offences, second only to the Gold Coast. This led to a doubling of NQ's drug-enforcement officers throughout the 1980s. In one police bust, more than 100,000 plants were found growing in a forest reserve near Townsville. Worth millions of dollars, it would've taken them more than a week to burn that lot off. It's unclear from the historical record what impact that had on police-recreation-leave requests at the time.
On another trip, I attempted to get a better view of the cascades by navigating to the edge of the escarpment a few kilometres away. Lo and behold, there was a spectacular 80m waterfall just upstream of the cascades I'd seen from the Wallaman lookout, but completely hidden from that view. Directly opposite the exciting and mysterious waterfall was a rocky bluff with a potentially perfect view of the falls. My mission solidified. I had to reach that rocky bluff to see the falls in all their glory. But this meant finding another way in. And with each successive attempt blocked by clifflines and impassable terrain, it took another four trips to find a walkable route into the falls.
In January 2021, with my son Quinn and his best buddy, we attempted to reach the bluff via the creek's western side. We followed a compass bearing, thrashed our way through dense rainforest, scrambled across side creeks, picked up leech hitchhikers and got hung up by the barbs of wait-a-while vine (Ed: Also called