Minyon Falls

I’d heard many stories about a large and beautiful waterfall not far from where I live in Suffolk Park. Named Minyon Falls, it’s one of the area’s popular attractions, and when I arrived I soon learned why.

After finding the car park, about 40 minutes west of Byron Bay, a friend and I decided to trek to the bottom of this towering cascade. It was splendid to be in the forest again and experience the clean smells and sounds of another world. Everywhere you looked there was a microcosm of activity.

Giant creepers, ferns, tallowwood gums and profuse bird life surrounded us. We passed a bird-watcher who told us there were little-strike thrush flittering about the forest. Nearby, a small rivulet meandered its way through the lush valley, an offshoot of Minyon Falls.

While the falls are often a tour de force during the height of the wet, yesterday’s walk revealed its more gentle side (seen above). A hundred metres tall, the falls are the result of Repentance Creek plummeting headlong over huge rhyolite cliffs formed from the Tweed Volcano.

Located in the Nightcap National Park, which is part of the World Heritage Site Gondwana Rainforest of Australia, Minyon Falls is also accessible from the top. Here visitors can access picnic and barbeque facilities, as well as a lookout over the lush, expansive valley.

The walk’s end involves a boulder scramble which could pose a challenge during a seasonally soggy slog. Just prior to this there’s a trail that winds away to the left, which several eager hikers were taking as we passed. The walk to the bottom of the falls is a three-hour return journey, taking into account a moderate level of fitness, and time to soak up the towering rainforest and rock formations surrounding this marvellous curtain of water.