It was a really long drive from Coonabarabran to Bellingen almost all the way back to the coast. Bellingen is a really small town, but there’s a great hostel next to the river and a handful of cool restaurants to eat at so it’s the perfect base to explore the Waterfall Way. This town completely shuts down at 7pm every night though. If you haven’t eaten, bought your groceries, or done whatever else you have to do by then, you’re waiting until tomorrow! Bellingen is at the eastern end of the Waterfall Way, a twisty turning road that makes it’s way westward for about a hundred miles or so, and passes through and near roughly eight or ten national parks along the way, I’m not sure. This whole area is just stunning.

I started my exploration at Wollomombi Falls in part of Oxley Wild Rivers National Park. There’s actually two waterfalls. One is Wollomombi and the other I think is Chandler Falls, but I’m not sure which is which. This Bellingen stop is one that I skipped last week because of all the rain. This region got hit with a huge cyclone in January and storm after storm since then, so there’s a lot of damage to roads and a lot of the trails in this area. There’s also a lot of floods. Some of the trails I intended to hike were closed, but the good news is that the waterfalls I did see were all nine and ten gushers. I can’t believe how much water there is here right now.

At the far western edge of Waterfall Way outside the town of Armidale is Dangars Gorge. I think this is also part of Oxley Wild Rivers National Park. The short walk goes out to a great viewpoint of the gorge and the top of Dangars Falls, a full gusher.

From Dangars Falls I took the five and half mile hike out to Mihi Falls through some really incredible grassland and eucalyptus forest. It was an awesome hike!

Overall, Mihi Falls was very impressive. The viewing platform only allows you to see about two thirds of the falls though, and it was probably the worst possible time to be there for the lighting conditions. The best views I got were actually when I wandered off the trail and down the hill a bit. I gave this one a nine on the gusher scale.

One of the trails I really wanted to do in Dorrigo National Park was closed and since the trailhead starts right at the parks visitor center, I don’t think I’ll be able to sneak past the barricade this time. Oh well! Just up the street in the town of Dorrigo, however, is the amazing Dangar Falls (singular), not too be confused with the previous Dangars Falls (plural). I don’t know why they’re called that, don’t ask me.

The lookout at the top of the falls was open, but the walk down to the base of the falls was closed because part of the walkway got washed out. Guess who found a way to bypass the barricade and go down the steep embankment, though? Ha! I wasn’t the first. It was a pretty well worn path, but I saw it and couldn’t resist. I’m glad I did too because just look at that monster of a waterfall! The short walk along the Bielsdown River downstream from the falls was stunning as well.

These next two waterfalls were probably the easiest waterfalls to get to on the whole trip. They were both right on the side of the road. I just pulled over into a turnout and walked along the road a few steps. First was Newell Falls.

Sherrard Falls was even more impressive. The views out over the valley weren’t bad either. They both scored full gushers. These are only about fifteen minutes from Bellingen.

I hadn’t planned on visiting this next part of New England National Park, but with the various trail closures I had some extra time. This place was fairly remote and I pretty much had it all to myself. I started by doing the hike along the cliffs to all the impressive viewpoints over Platypus Valley. The area is referred to as Point Lookout though.

Back at the campground where I parked I then headed the opposite direction to do the Cascades Hike. The first part was just down a long fire road, but then the trail went into the thick rainforest and straight down, way down, to the stream at the bottom.

Someone got creative with this trail. It followed the stream for quite a long ways, almost in the stream in some parts, over slippery rocks, around mangled trees, through thick wet ferns, even through a small waterfall at one point, seen above. Being up close and personal with that stream and all that cascading water was definitely worth the effort though!

There were also some fallen trees to navigate under. These must have fallen recently because it looked like someone did some trail maintenance not too long ago.

Finally, I came to this beautiful waterfall just before the trail started climbing back up the muddy hill. Awesome! The gusher scale needle hit ten and didn’t budge all afternoon. This was a really rugged and dirty endeavor. It was not at all the easy river walk I thought I was going on and it took me quite a bit longer than I anticipated, but WOW was this a fun hike!

My last day I drove out to a couple of sites just a few miles apart. Starting with Cathedral Rock National Park. It’s a really pretty loop hike that takes you up to the summit of Cathedral Rock. At first it appeared to be a normal eucalyptus forest, but there were all these crazy boulders everywhere like a mountain exploded or something.

Towards the summit I got my first glimpse of Cathedral Rock. You don’t see it at all on the hike until you’re almost right next to it. The climb up was tough! There were some small rock tunnels to get through, rock climbing, boulder hopping. I made it almost to the top. When I got to the part with the chains anchored into the vertical rock and saw how far I would fall if I lost my grip, I called it good. The view from where I stopped was more than satisfying enough. I ate a snack while I gazed out over the valley below, then eventually made my way down on all fours. Haha!

Just down the road from Cathedral Rock in the little town of Ebor was Ebor Falls. Ebor is just a little mountain village and maybe a bit run down. You would never guess that this magnificent set of waterfalls was hiding right behind it. This is part of the Guy Fawkes River National Park.

The main falls was a giant two tiered monster. A perfect ten gusher. It was pretty loud too. That’s a lot of water!

Further down the path is the equally impressive lower falls. You can also see part of the main falls upstream from here.

Even further down the path you reach the end of the line, the Guy Fawkes River Valley view. The view would have been enough, but there was a little bonus waterfall as well, over on the left. Incredible!

Everyday I was here I kept thinking I gotta go to Ebor Falls, but I kept finishing my other excursions too late. So everyday I would put it off until the next day. Now I’m kind of glad that I waited until the last day because this was a great way to end my time here on the Waterfall Way. I even saw a cute wallaby as I was walking back up to the parking lot.

Even with all the trail closures and partial closures, I really only missed out on two waterfalls on this stop. Everything else I had planned I was able to do. And even though I had to reroute myself for the last few stops because of the weather, I’m pretty happy about how things turned out in the end. Now I should be back on schedule as I head to the next stop tomorrow…