Punna Falls

Saturday 30th July 2016

Punna Falls

 After the walk to Punna Falls in 2014 and not reaching the base of the falls I thought they were owed another visit, but approaching from below the falls this time.
I parked in a small park off Denison Road and walked a short distance up the road to the track on the left that goes up to Badger Saddle. As I was climbing up I could see a recently logged and burnt area in the distance which appeared to be in the direction that I needed to go.About 800 metres up this track I left it and headed down to Badger Creek and crossed over it and continued on paralleling the creek until I reached the burnt area. This was a very large area and does not show up on Google Earth, so it is quite recent.

I walked across the coup but should have stayed to the right hand side as it was easier going. Basically I continued on right up to the top right hand corner where I left the coup and entered the bush. It was not too bad and I headed down to the creek. The creek was flowing quite well so I had high expectations for the falls.

The last section of creek before the falls was a bit of a nightmare of large trees and debris but I finally made it to the base of the falls and was pleasantly surprised. There was a generous cascade coming down and it was really pretty.

There was much more water here than when I was last in the area.

After spending a little time here I walked back out to the coup and down the edge to a road I had seen coming in on the right on the way up. I suspected that it would head over to the track going up Badger Saddle, but the joke ended up being on me, as it did a complete circle and came back to where I started. I suspect that it was just a fire break. I had a quiet chuckle to myself. Undaunted I carried on back down the coup, across Badger Creek, up to the Badger Saddle track and back to the car.

Log crossing over Badger Creek

Once back in the car, I drove up Weld Road and down a forestry track on the right which goes right into the coup. It would be good to start the walk from here as it would cut off a bit of distance.
This was a great little walk and it was good to finally get a proper look at the falls, but best to avoid the unnecessary side track, although there was nice forest in this area.
Distance: 9.2 kms.
Time: 4'04"
Ascent: 450 metres
Click here to download GPX file.