Behana Gorge & Clam Shell Falls Walk, Wooroonooran National Park - May 2022

Clam Shell Falls in Behana Gorge.

With the weather not really co-operating on this visit to Cairns I'd mostly been confined to shorter walks nearer town, the surrounding mountains being cloaked in cloud most of the time. Wandering out onto my balcony first thing this morning the situation didn't look like it had improved so I started to think about the possibilities for the day. After a little research I came up with a walk to Clam Shell Falls, apparently the track was sealed the whole way and with all the rain around the falls should be pumping. After motoring south past Walsh's Pyramid I picked up the access road for Behana Gorge and managed to grab the last car park at the trail head.

 

This place would get busy on the weekend I think.

No shortage of rules here.

With the showers constantly passing through my umbrella was the most important piece of kit on this walk and it was in use from the get go as I passed through the locked gate and headed off towards Behind Gorge and Clam Shell Falls. The concrete path made the walking fairly easy although I still had to be careful as the path was sometimes quite steep and with all the rain and forest litter it was slick in spots. The track stays fairly close to Behana Creek for the whole walk and initially the path undulated a bit, passing by a nice swimming spot before it started to climb a little more solidly.

This concrete path runs all the way up to the falls.

I crossed a few side creeks on my way up to the falls.

This bloke was just chilling out on the side of the path.

While the path started to get a bit steeper the gorge also started to get pretty rugged and it was obvious that the creek was pretty high. By the time I got to a long sweeping left hand bend the track was benched into the sides of a cliff and the view from here of both the surging creek below me and Clam Shell Falls a little further up stream was stunning. While the view was amazing it was also about now that I realised that a swim up here probably wasn't going to happen this morning, not only was the insistent rain dampening my enthusiasm but the surging water made me think that it wouldn't be the smartest place to jump in.

Some of the side creeks were quite substantial after all the rain.

After another steep climb...

... I arrived at the first lookout.

The view into the gorge from the first lookout was a nice one - there was better to come though.

On the last few metres of my outward walk I had to scramble down some wet rocks to try and get a view of the falls, and doing this with an umbrella in one hand made my think that not going for a swim was a good call. After juggling my umbrella, the DSLR and trying not to go arse up on the slippery rocks I managed to snap off a couple of photos - although there wasn't much framing going on! 

Clam Shell Falls.

Standing on the rocks listening to the roar of the water I decided against a swim.

There is a good spot a 100 metres or so before the falls to get a nice overview of the area.

Here's a slightly wider angle.

With the rain only getting heavier now I stashed the DSLR away and set off back down to the ute. The walk back down took me pretty well as much time as the walk up had, as the potential to slip going down seemed higher - and I've got a lot of gravity working against me! By the time I got back to the ute I was happy to climb and get out of the rain for awhile, cranking up the air conditioner I started thinking about my next small adventure.

With the rain coming down I figured that it was time to retreat back to the ute.

By the time I'd got half way back the sun was out again.

I'm thinking that the water isn't normally up this high.

The Dirt.

According to my GPS I walked around 7.1 kilometres and climbed about 216 metres on this easy walk. There are no steps on this walk so I suppose that Wheelchairs and Prams are a possibility - although you'd want to be fit and strong as there are some decent grades to contend with. There are numerous opportunities for swimming in Behana Creek and the good news is that they aren't all up at the falls, so if anyone just wants to soak in the cool water then you don't have to do the whole walk. This walk is in Woodslanes book Best Walks around Cairns & the Tablelands and I used those notes along with my Alltrails App and GPS topos this morning.

Relevant Posts.

Mt Walsh Walk, 2022.

Arriving back at the ute and the rain was coming down again!