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Jourama Falls is an intriguing multi-tiered waterfall tumbling over at least five or six visible sections.
As far as we were concerned, it was definitely worth the trouble considering the hike to get to the falls wasn't trivial, and neither was the drive to get to the car park (we'll explain why shortly). But as for the waterfall itself, we needed a wide angle lens to even try to capture all of the waterfall's tiers, and even this wasn't easy. The base of the falls also had additional cascades, waterslides, and swimming pools though they didn't exactly look inviting in the high-water state we saw it in during our May 2008 visit.
From the car park, we were faced with a 3km return track (we took about an hour) to reach the overlook platform for the falls. The first 900m of the walk was flat, but the last 600m was all uphill. And in the flat section, there were two fairly long and deep stream crossings.
In the state the stream was in, Julie and I had a lot of difficulty trying to keep our feet dry (somehow we managed, I think). We definitely perused the chains to hold onto for balance as well as a few makeshift "steps" (basically barrels filled in with either concrete or dirt to weight them down) to make the traverse more feasible.
Beyond the stream crossing, we then had to negotiate slippery boulders strewn on the far side of the stream bank before finally getting beyond the watercourse. It was only then that the uphill section began, and it was straightforward to follow. And in this stretch, there was another spur trail leading to the stream further downstream of the Jourama Falls where we did see some young folks brave the running waters for a swim (they're nuts!). There was also a slight partial view of the top of the falls from down here as well.
Directions: The signposted turnoff for the falls (Jourama Falls Rd) is 24km south of Ingham or 91km north of Townsville along the Bruce Hwy (Hwy 1). Although the directions are pretty straightforward, accessing the car park on the last 6km unsealed road was a little scary for us.
The reason why was because there were two concrete fords, which I'm sure would be impassable in flood. But we were supposed to be at the end of the Wet Season and into the Dry in May, and still the fords here were close to impassable (I reckoned some heavy rains had fallen not long ago given how brown the stream looked). Basically, we waited for another car to pass before we took the chance after seeing that other car (which was a 2wd) didn't seem to have any qualms about moving forward.
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