Eldon and Dead Creek Falls

Thursday, 16 April 2015

Eldon and Dead Creek Falls

Thursday 16th April 2015

Eldon Falls

Eldon Falls

My aim today was to walk to two of the lesser known falls around the Judbury area. Even though both walks are quite short by bush walking standards the day turned out to be rather a good one.
To reach the start of Eldon Falls I drove west out of Judbury and turned right into Jacobsons Road and kept driving up to find a small parking area off the road.
The walk followed an old forestry track downhill, and just as it turned south, I left it and headed down to Dora Creek. The creek had some flow but not as much as when I was here about three months ago. After crossing the creek I walked uphill and then down towards Eldon Falls. The coordinates that I had for the falls were not really accurate and I ended up slightly above the falls. A bit of a scramble brought me down to the base of the falls. They were flowing quite well and I was pleasantly surprised. The rocks were very slippery. I ended up walking a little further downstream before returning to the car more or less the same way. There was no thick scrub to contend with on this walk and it was mostly open type forest.
A good, fairly easy walk although there are a couple of steep sections going down to both creeks.
Distance: 2.7 kms.
Time: 1"58"
Ascent: 254 metres
Click here to download GPX file.

Eldon Falls

Looking down the creek from base of falls

Looking up to the falls from lower down

Open mossy forest

Dead Creek Falls

Dead Creek Falls

After finishing Eldon Falls, it was then onto Dead Creek Falls. I have called them Dead Creek Falls as they don't seem to have an official name.
To get there I continued driving up Jacobsons Road to Puzzle Road and Paddys Flat Road and found a park just over Dead Creek.
Now, I should have guessed that Dead Creek might not have much water in it going by its name. After I headed off back down the road and crossed the creek, I found that there was no flow whatsoever. I debated whether to keep going or not, but seeing as I was here I decided to carry on with no expectations of there being any water flowing over the falls. I found an old forestry track that ran along the edge of a pine plantation and that headed uphill in the right direction. It was quite overgrown but easily managed and when I reached the place where I thought I should head off in the direction of the falls, I did so. It was rather steep going down and I came to a scree slope at the base of the falls. As I had suspected, no water, but if you look very closely, maybe with a magnifying glass, you may see a glisten of past water. Okay, I am stretching things a bit. I climbed up the scree, which was quite slippery and prone to move and checked out the top of the falls. A couple of puddles!! There was a view from up here of the surrounding forestry plantations. I then headed back through the scrub to find the old track again and back to the car.
This was a good short walk, even though there was no waterfall to be seen. I would think that it would be quite spectacular after some decent rain as it has a good drop.
Distance: 2.1 kms.
Time: 1'55"
Ascent: 208 metres
Click here to download GPX file.