Hiking Belmore Falls
Dec. 30th, 2023 12:16 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
canyonwalkerAustralia Travelog #16
Robertson NSW - Wed, 27 Dec 2023, 3:30pm
After hiking Fitzroy Falls and eating lunch in Kangaroo-less Valley we drove on to our next destination for the day, Belmore Falls. It's close to Fitzroy Falls. That's part of how we picked it; we looked for a cluster of places to visit, to keep driving back and forth today to a manageable level. (Don't worry, it'll still be ~400km by the time we're done.) The other part of how we picked it is that, well, it's huge. More on that in a moment.
One odd thing is that despite being such a large waterfalls, Belmore Falls is really remote. Unlike Fitzroy Falls it's not part of a designated park, let alone a national park. It's out on a dirt road at the end of a country lane. There's even a water crossing to get to it.
Link: View video on YouTube
In the video I refer to our rental car as a "fake SUV". That's because this Renault Koleos looks like an SUV but doesn't have any of the features you expect of an SUV, particularly AWD or 4WD. I determined that when I shifted to the side of the dirt road when another vehicle and I passed, and we almost got stuck in a not-very-deep ditch.
Once we got there— for small values of "there" as little marked the location— we parked, hopped out of the car, and walked along a path on the edge of the cliff.
Like Fitzroy Falls (previous blog) Belmore Falls plunges off the edge of a plateau into a canyon. Also like Fitzroy Falls, Belmore Falls drops in two or three tiers.
Depending on how you count it, Belmore Falls drops 77 ~ 130 meters (253 ~ 427 feet). That's what references state, anyway. I presume that range indicates the height of the highest, uppermost falls versus the overall drop of all the tiers.
On the way out from the falls we stopped by the water crossing on the road. On the way in we'd seen a few trucks parked alongside the road there. The crossing is actually really close to the top of the falls; we figured there was a path there to reach a lookout point. Indeed there was. It was a very short path but it was flooded, probably from recent rains— like the rain today.
The trail led, predictably, to a perch just above and to the side of the falls. The view here is both limited and boggling. Limited, because you can only see part of the falls and can't appreciate how tall they are overall. But also boggling, because you're looking pretty much straight down a drop of more than 250 feet.
In beauty I walk.
Robertson NSW - Wed, 27 Dec 2023, 3:30pm
After hiking Fitzroy Falls and eating lunch in Kangaroo-less Valley we drove on to our next destination for the day, Belmore Falls. It's close to Fitzroy Falls. That's part of how we picked it; we looked for a cluster of places to visit, to keep driving back and forth today to a manageable level. (Don't worry, it'll still be ~400km by the time we're done.) The other part of how we picked it is that, well, it's huge. More on that in a moment.
One odd thing is that despite being such a large waterfalls, Belmore Falls is really remote. Unlike Fitzroy Falls it's not part of a designated park, let alone a national park. It's out on a dirt road at the end of a country lane. There's even a water crossing to get to it.
Link: View video on YouTube
In the video I refer to our rental car as a "fake SUV". That's because this Renault Koleos looks like an SUV but doesn't have any of the features you expect of an SUV, particularly AWD or 4WD. I determined that when I shifted to the side of the dirt road when another vehicle and I passed, and we almost got stuck in a not-very-deep ditch.
Once we got there— for small values of "there" as little marked the location— we parked, hopped out of the car, and walked along a path on the edge of the cliff.
Like Fitzroy Falls (previous blog) Belmore Falls plunges off the edge of a plateau into a canyon. Also like Fitzroy Falls, Belmore Falls drops in two or three tiers.
Depending on how you count it, Belmore Falls drops 77 ~ 130 meters (253 ~ 427 feet). That's what references state, anyway. I presume that range indicates the height of the highest, uppermost falls versus the overall drop of all the tiers.
On the way out from the falls we stopped by the water crossing on the road. On the way in we'd seen a few trucks parked alongside the road there. The crossing is actually really close to the top of the falls; we figured there was a path there to reach a lookout point. Indeed there was. It was a very short path but it was flooded, probably from recent rains— like the rain today.
The trail led, predictably, to a perch just above and to the side of the falls. The view here is both limited and boggling. Limited, because you can only see part of the falls and can't appreciate how tall they are overall. But also boggling, because you're looking pretty much straight down a drop of more than 250 feet.
In beauty I walk.
