The Queen Mary Waterfall

The Queen Mary Falls are found in the Main Range National
Park on the McPherson Range near the New South Wales/
Queensland border.

....................Overlooking the Queen Mary Waterfalls.

The 40 metre waterfall is located 50 km south-east of Warwick,

11 km east of the town of Killarney in Queensland, Australia on

the Killarney-Boonah Road. The route to the park is well

signposted. The approach from Boonah is very steep and

should be travelled with care. It is unsuitable for caravans.

........The waterfall from the base after a 30 minute walk.

The Queen Mary Falls are on Spring Creek, a tributary of the

Condamine River. The falls were formed when water erosion by

streams created gorges through layers of basalt and resistant

trachyte. Trachyte is an igneous, volcanic rock.

.......Driving through one of the 14 creek crossings.

Many, many moons ago, I went to visit the Queen Mary Falls and

I got lost and never did reach the falls.

................David, Janice and Warren.

.............Maree, David and Janice.

A few weeks ago, David a friend at work asked if I would like to

join him and some friends as they were going to the Queen Mary

Falls. Last Sunday I drove over to David’s place as were going in

his four wheel drive. There are two ways to go to the falls. One

is up the steep climb from Boonah, and the other is via the lower

road where we would need the four wheel drive, as we had

14 creek crossings over the tributary of the Condamine River.

.............Another creek crossing.

A week prior to our journey there had been a huge deluge of rain

in the Boonah area and David was a little concerned the creeks

might be too high for us to forge through the now fast running creek.

We decided to drive down to the first crossing to check out the

depth of the creek. Maree volunteered to walk through the creek

to check out the depth of the crossing. I had met David’s friend,

Janice a number of times, Maree was a friend of Janice and I had

not met her before. She turned out to be a “crazy” lady (and I say

this in the nicest way) with a immense sense of humour, and a

loud, enjoyable laugh. I had with me a digital video camera and a

still digital camera.

I wanted to video tape our “adventure” crossing the creeks.

Top to bottom: David, Maree and Warren at the base of the falls.

Maree forged the first crossing without incident and David then

drove though and had to return for me as I was recording this

first crossing. Maree also forged the second crossing.

The water was a little deeper and while walking through the

water both her thongs came free from her feet. Both thongs

began to float away in separate directions. She was able to

recover one thong, but the other was out of reach. During the

attempt to retrieve the second thong, Maree’s shorts became

drenched. Fortunately she had a swimming costume with her

and she was able to change into the bottom half of the togs.

I just liked the shape and design of both of these trees.

We caught up to some other four wheel vehicles in front of us

and we were able to watch and then follow them through

the rest of the crossings. After the last crossing, the dirt road,

turned into bitumen and we continued up the range towards

the falls. Before we reached the Queen Mary falls we stopped

and viewed two more waterfalls, the Teviot Falls and the Dagg's Falls.

Reaching the entrance to the Queen Mary Falls park there was

only a 500 metre walk to the viewing platform. We then proceed

to walk the 2km circuit to the base of the falls. The walk without

a stop would take 45 minutes to 1 hour. After we walked back to

the top, we sat down to a scrumptious picnic that had been

prepared by both ladies.

While we enjoyed our picnic we were visited by a Kookaburra.

.........David, Janice and Maree.

We had been most fortunate, as the drive up to the first creek

crossing was under rainy conditions. The drive through all the

14 crossings and then the walk and picnic, the rain ceased.

Once we were on the road home the rain returned. All in all

we spent a very enjoyable day with pleasant company.

.............A Crimson Rosella near the Caravan Park.

..........A Wallaby out in the open paddock.

Should you be in this part of the country a visit to the Queen

Mary Falls is well worth the effort. Mind you if there had a dry

spell, it would be quite possible to find the waterfall not in the

same splendid condition as we did, and it would be most

disappointing to drive all this way to view the falls to find them “dry”.

............A view from the back and then from the front.

Near the entrance to the falls there is a caravan park and just

before you enter the small shop nearby is a large burnt out tree

trunk. David stood inside so we could get an idea of what the

size of the tree was.

After all the rain the countryside was lush and green as these two

scenes will show you.

I took about 15 minutes of video and after editing it, I ended up

with just over 11 minutes. I am posting about three minutes of the

video, so that you can see some of what we encountered.