NORTH QLD ADVENTURE - DAY 8 – PALUMA NATIONAL PARK – NORTH OF TOWNSVILLE……
Today we planned to explore the Paluma National Park and in particular Big Crystal Creek as I had read quite a bit about it on several different travel Facebook pages.
It was about 9am when we set off…. The plan was to spend the morning there and then come home and chill out at this beautiful resort we are staying in for a couple of days…
The National Park was only about 10kms down the highway from where we were staying, hence our decision to stay so close…
As we drove in, there were two ways we could go….
To the left there was a 7km drive on windy roads to Little Crystal Creek or to the right it was 7kms to Big Crystal Creek. On the spare of the moment we decided to turn to the left and explore Little Crystal Creek first. What an absolute gem and by far my most favourite spot…
I am not even sure how I could describe this perfect spot…
Mount Spec Road and Little Crystal Creek Bridge is a heritage-listed road from Mutarnee to Paluma with a bridge over Little Crystal Creek at Crystal Creek. The road and the bridge were constructed between 1930 and 1936 under the Unemployment Relief Scheme during the Great Depression. They were added to the Queensland Heritage Register on 30 October 2008. Interestingly, a friend of ours from back home informed me that his grandfather was the chief foreman for the construction of this bridge.
This concrete arch bridge over Little Crystal Creek is a prominent feature of the landscape in this area, and the bridge is a very common subject for photography by locals and visitors. Little Crystal Creek is one of the most popular natural destinations for not only residents of the nearby town of Townsville but also for the many tourists that travel up the east coast of this amazing State.
It was certainly very popular also the day we were there with quite a few families enjoying the rock pools, and many young folk swimming in the crystal-clear water of the deep-water holes. We loved the place and were there for well over and an hour and a half. The bridge was also the background for many of our photo also…
Our intentions were only ever going to be that we would just visit this Little Crystal Creek, but just the drive to Little Crystal Creek was so beautiful we decided to drive right up the road to the village of Paluma also….
The time we got closer to Paluma, the drive was just stunning as it was dense rainforest that you were driving through….
We saw a sight for McClelland’s Lookout, so decided to stop here and check out the views out over the ranges all the way out to Halifax Bay where we could clearly see the ocean…
A little bit of interesting information about the Lookout was that it was named after the Main Roads Commission overseer, W. H. McClelland who was in charge of the construction of Paluma Road and Little Crystal Creek bridge in 1931.
During World War Two the lookout was also the site of a United States Air Force radar station monitoring the air approaches into Townsville over the Coral Sea.
The views here were so beautiful that we decided to stop and have our morning tea here… Whilst Steve walked back to the car to grab our picnic bags, I took photos of some of the lovely views in front of us…
Although the weather was quite warm, there was a very cool breeze coming in off the ocean and being so high up then meant we were feeling the chill.
Whist we were there having our morning tea we got talking to some other tourists who told us about a Rainforest walk, and also a walk down to the Birthday Creek Falls, so we figured that since we were up here anyway, what would driving another 10kms hurt, we might as well go and see both of these suggestions…
We did the rainforest walk first. This walk was absolutely stunning and for the most part we were the only couple of the track. The walk wasn’t particularly a long walk, a little under a kilometre but with several steps down before having to climb right back up again to exit it onto the road… Again, we took lots of photos…
 |
| A very old sign... |
From here we decided to go and see if we could find Birthday creek Falls. We had to travel a further 12-15kms to get there and most of it was over a gravel road.
Although being gravel, the road was in pretty good knick, and you could have certainly travelled over it in a conventional car. We stopped a couple of times to take photos because the scenery along the road was just stunning…
Birthday Creek Falls is on the road out to the Paluma Dam. The walk down to the Falls is only 1.4kms return, but it is a steep down hill walk. Normally I would be as keen as punch to do this walk, and whilst I still did it, every step down left a jarring pain in both my knees and my feet. Glad I did though as these falls were stunning…
Birthday Creek Falls is a beautiful 20-metre cascading, slab waterfall in Birthday Creek. The water is crystal clear and icy cold making it very refreshing. You can also walk through the rainforest to the top of the picturesque cascades on Birthday Creek, which is what we did before venturing down to the bottom of the falls.
We loved these falls; we were the only people there and I can see why lots of people prefer the quietness and remoteness of Birthday Creek compared to the more popular Little Crystal Creek. Steve was super proud of me for making the walk down. I have to say I was pretty darn proud of myself also. There is no way I would have been able to do this 12-18 months ago….
By the time we got back to the car it was after 4pm, so we really needed to head off if we planned to visit Big Crystal Creek.
The drive down the range was even that much impressive as you had views all the way out to the sea all the way down the range. We seemed to come down quite a bit faster than we went up.
Once we got to the bottom, we tossed up whether we should just head home as the daylight hours were slowly disappearing.
Steve was still keen to quickly drive in to see the Big Crystal Creek attractions. He didn’t want to have any regrets.
The drive into Big Crystal Creek was nothing like the drive up to Paluma… This time the road was flat all the way in. There are camping grounds that you can camp at for $6 per person per night and these are attached to the Day park picnic area which have gas BBQs and toilets and then it is a 100m walk down to Paradise Waterhole…
Paradise Waterhole is fed from water which tumbles down from the cool rainforest of the Paluma Range, crashing over huge slippery boulders on its way to the flat coastal plain. Even down on the plain, this creek is known for it’s freezing cold water. It is cold enough to be refreshing but at this time of year lacks the chill factor, and it was quite busy with lots of people still in the water even at this time of the afternoon…
A little shy of 2km past Paradise Waterhole you will come to a dirt lot, where we parked up and then we continue by foot following the road beyond the gate about 500m until the signpost directs us to the left.
This bought us out at a spectacular waterhole and rock slides where you could literally spend hours exploring this spot properly! There were several young boys riding the rock slides down and making plenty of noise and having lots of fun. You can also frolic further upstream and find more pools. Steve photographed a heap of them, but unfortunately, we were running out of daylight hours to explore them all.
The rock slides looked to be insanely fun and the kids sliding down the rocks looked to actually get a fair bit of speed us as they slid down…
For people like us who are probably a little past
the slipping and sliding, retreating to the tranquil waterfall and splashing around in the
crystal clear green pool looked to be more like fun to me…
It was almost sunset by the time we left here. Steve wanted to fuel up at Mutarnee before we headed back to the caravan park in readiness for our journey in the morning…
On our way to the Service Station we noticed several signs for the “Frosty Mango”. This was one of those Big Aussie Icon’s that I need to tick off, so we went an extra 1km down the road to photograph him.
As we still hadn’t had lunch and both of us were starving, we decided to treat ourselves to one of their famous ice creams. I had a Rum and Rain and Strawberry one, and Steve had the double rum and raisin one. We ate these in the car before heading back to our van park.
What a great day it has been. We are beyond exhausted but we would do it all again in a heartbeat...
