I headed out with Digi Dave for a great day of waterfall photography south of Sydney. Recent rain had put the creeks up – and that makes the waterfalls quite spectacular.
The lower falls of National Falls
The first waterfall we visited was National Falls in Royal National Park. This is double stage fall and they are located on McKell Avenue down from the village of Waterfall. The carpark is at the top of the upper falls.
Upper falls – National Falls
From the carpark there is a walking track that takes you the short distance to the bottom of the upper falls. To get photos you need to climb over the railing and perhaps get your feet wet.
If you walk down the side of the road from the carpark along the armco, there is an old track about 100 m down that takes you down to the bottom of the higher lower fall. It is quite slippery and wet down the bottom and you need to be careful.
We then headed back up to Waterfall and along the Old Princess Highway to Darkes Forest to see Maddens Falls in Dharawal National Park. These are reached along a well signposted walking track. Parts of the track are on wooden duckboard.
Maddens Falls
I hadn’t visit these falls before and I found them very attractive. Again, you need to leave the viewing platform to get the best photo positions. We crosse the creek above the falls and from the other side it is easy to climb down to a mid level ledge.
Above the falls is another unmarked turnoff track that goes down a very short distance to an old weir.
We left Maddens Falls and then headed to Helensburgh and Kellys Falls. These falls are in Garawarra State Conservation Area. Above the falls is a picnic area and we used this for lunch.
Kellys Falls
There are two main waterfalls here – one on Kellys Creek called Romeo Falls and one on the nearby Gills Creek called Juliet Falls. It is very hard to get a good view of either of the waterfalls even though there are a lot of viewing platforms. Trees of cliffs get in the way. On our visit, we notched another visitor flying a drone – and that would perhaps be the best way of getting photos of both these falls.
However the upper cascades on Kellys Creek are very attractive and also the rainforest section of Gills Gully above Juliet Falls.
Cascades in Gills Gully
More photos of these falls are on my website – National Falls, Maddens Falls and Kellys Falls.