Blencoe Falls


The trip to Blencoe Falls begins at Kennedy, 10km north of Cardwell or 2 hours drive south of Cairns. Turn west at Kennedy and travel 6km to the base of Kirrama Range here there will be a dirt road that starts on your right, the dirt road foes for just over 70km to the campgrounds. You start with driving through the lush rainforest with lookouts back to the coast to see Hinchenbrook Island and Cardwell. Driving through the rainforest section you will come to several little bridges that cross over creeks there is also a little waterfall that spills onto the road depending how much rain has been. You will then notice as the rainforest dries out and the area becomes a dry bushland. Along the road in you will come across several cattle grates which also means be weary of cattle after passing. If you pass the new campgrounds you can follow the road around for another 5.2km to the lookout platform of Blencoe Falls, this provides nice full views of the entire falls as they step down to the running Herbert river at the bottom of Gorge.


You will notice I said before the new campground as there was once the old campground that lay right on the edge of the falls that you can see from the lookout platform. You are able to get to the old campground but I will let you know now before you go it may take some time. The National Parks have attempted to block the track off with trees fallen across the old track every 100m or so, and if they haven't been able to find a tree they have dug up the road to create big mounds and holes across the entire road. With this being said you are able to still get there, a friend & I were able to navigate a way around most of the trees and dirt piles that we weren't able to go over or push just far enough off the track. I will leave a photo at the bottom showing where to turn off along the original track to get onto the old camp grounds track. After initially turning off the main track you will continue along a dirt road which will eventually come to a gate that should be closed with a national parks sign on it open the gate and close it as you found it, from here just follow the dirt road. On the way to the old campground the road does split, right goes to the campgrounds but if you go left it will lead you to an old lookout area, beware there are no platforms or supports anywhere, the views look across and down the gorge.
From the old camp ground there is a track that runs down to the water on top of the falls, here there are plenty places to swim & rock hop across to look down the gorge.