Minyon Falls, Nightcap National Park, New South Wales.

Minyon Falls Lookout

We drove to the Minyon Falls Lookout carpark from Rummery Campground early in the morning. There are gas BBq's, picnic tables and information signs. 

It was a short stroll to the lookout platform at the top of Minyon Falls. There were magnificent views of the morning mist just lifting off the mountains and the falls were spectacular after all the recent rain. The scale of the falls falling 100 meters over stunning rhyolite cliffs is hard to convey in a photo.

Minyon Falls Walking Track, 7.5 km loop, hard. This walk can be started from Minyon Falls Picnic Area or Minyon Grass Picnic Area. The loop can also be accessed from Rummery Park Campground via Boggy Creek Walk; an additional 4 km return. 

We had been looking forward to hiking the Minyon Falls Walk from the lookout but there had been heavy rain during the night, and over the preceding few days, making a walk already designated hard even more challenging so we made the difficult decision not to do the walk.

Minyon Grass Picnic Area

We drove to Minyon Grass Picnic Area where there are picnic tables, gas BBQ's and toilets. A lookout platform offers excellent views of Minyon Falls in the distance. We noticed a large collection of snail shells at the base of a tree but were unable to find the bird responsible; perhaps a Noisy Pitta.

Minyon Grass to the Base of Minyon Falls Walk, moderate, 4 km return.

We had already decided not to walk the Minyon Falls Walking Track from the top of Minyon Falls because of the wet and slippery conditions but decided we would try to walk to the base of the falls from Minyon Grass. The first 500 m of the walk drops 70 m before leveling off. It was slippery going but we enjoyed the walk through Scribbly Gums, wet rainforest and Bangalow Palms. The track was covered in the red fruit of the palm trees. On a side note, Bangalow Palms are known as Piccabeen Palms in Queensland.

Fungi was flourishing in the wet conditions. 

We saw Eastern Water Skinks and Blue-speckled Forest Skinks. Only a few birds were out in the wet.

Brown Cuckoo Dove and Eastern Yellow Robin.

After walking 2 km we were very disappointed to arrive at a sign stating that we had reached the base of the falls. Personally, I don't feel that arriving at a place with no view of the falls qualifies as arriving at the base of the falls! Somewhat stunned and incredulous at this turn of events we made our way to the creek in the hope of perhaps glimpsing the falls from there but there was no sight of the falls to be had. We could see where the Minyon Falls Track crossed the creek to where we stood and there was a track marker indicating a continuation of that track. We scrambled down the first set of rocks but the next set went straight up and were too wet and slippery for us so we returned to the carpark without seeing the falls.

We managed to get up and down this section of the "track".

 There is a track marker on the palm, top center. End of the walk for us.