About Dinner Falls
Dinner Falls seemed to Julie and I to be a series of three main waterfalls on the Upper Barron River, each with their own distinctive character and shape.
Some of these shapes were pretty unusual, and perhaps that was what stood out about this waterfall collective.
From what I could tell, each tier of Dinner Falls was probably on the order of 10-15m or so (the main middle drop was said to be about 12m tall).
The falls also shared the same trailhead as that of the Hypipamee Crater, which seemed to be the main geological feature of Mt Hypipamee National Park (pronounced HYE-pip-uh-mee).
This crater was basically a deep hole filled in with stagnant green water and surrounded by very tall vertical cliffs (possibly 138m tall).
Considering it just a couple minutes walk from the Dinner Falls Circuit Walk, it was definitely worth checking out as part of the waterfall excursion.
It’s just that with this eerie-looking geologic attraction, you’ll definitely not want to drop anything from the overlook!
Hiking to Dinner Falls and the Hypipamee Crater
When it came to doing the Dinner Falls track, we had options on how to visit all of the waterfalls in addition to the Hypipamee Crater.
But in this write-up, we’ll just describe how we’ve done it as part of a clockwise loop walk that takes in the whole experience.
Starting from the car park (see directions below), we went on walkway that started off paved while flanked by a monsoonal rainforest.
The pavement would persist as it crossed two signed trail junctions (each being the start and endpoints of the Dinner Falls Circuit) on the way to the wooden lookout of the Mt Hypipamee Crater.
This lookout was about 400m from the car park, and it was 100m beyond the second signed junction with the Dinner Falls Circuit.
After having our fill of the views of the steep crater, we then backtracked and did the Dinner Falls Circuit, which now veered left and downhill on the way back.
At this point, the track was now dirt and we pretty much clung to a sloping ledge while descending a couple of short switchbacks before reaching a lookout with a partial view of the lowermost tier of Dinner Falls.
This part of the waterfall series was a long cascade that was difficult to photograph due to its overall length and height so it was tempting to try to improve the view beyond the railing.
I swore that this railing wasn’t there on our first visit in May 2008, but it’s understandable why they put it up due to the steep and slippery terrain potentially causing injuries or even fatalities here.
Continuing further up the track, we then encountered the second of the Dinner Falls, which was a trio of segmented drops as pictured as the top of this page.
The plunge pool before the falls was fringed by reddish rocks, which added to the color of the greenish clear water making up the pool.
On our late June 2022 visit, it looked like this plunge pool was reinforced with some kind of mini-dam wall, which might have been put there to make this more of a swimming or wading hole (not totally sure though).
Regardless, this was the most accessible and perhaps the main waterfall tier of the Dinner Falls, and so the name of the falls could very well be associated with just this part of the overall falls.
Finally, after ascending a couple of switchbacks as the trail skirted the Barron River, we eventually came to the uppermost section of the Dinner Falls.
We thought this part of the falls had the most unusual shape of the three tiers thanks to its somewhat triangular (or parallelogram) shape as seen from the viewing area.
By the way, the viewing area here was nothing more than an unsigned outcrop so care must be taken to avoid an accident.
After having our fill of this falls, we then continued the climb back up to the first signed trail junction, where we then went back the final stretch to return to the car park.
Overall, we spent a little over an hour away from the car to do this walk (which was consistent between our pair of visits – once in May 2008 and again in late June 2022).
Possible Cassowary Sighting
One thing we couldn’t ignore about our visit to the Mt Hypipamee Crater National Park was the presence of cassowary signs and warnings.
We weren’t sure whether we should be disappointed or glad at not having seen one of these rare birds in the wild here (even despite one sign saying that there was a recent sighting here during our May 2008 visit).
Although it would’ve been quite cool to see the big, endangered, flightless bird with a head that reminded me of a bracchiosaurus, perhaps it was better that we didn’t given how aggressive they can be.
Now while cassowary sightings in the wild may be quite rare (and increasingly so as time goes on), the red-headed bush turkeys seemed to be everpresent here (as well as most of Queensland for that matter).
With those guys, you really have to be vigilant with your food, especially if you’re choosing to have a picnic here.
Authorities
Dinner Falls resides in the Mount Hypipamee National Park near Malanda, Queensland. It is administered by the State of Queensland Department of Environment and Science. For information or inquiries about the area as well as current conditions, visit their website.
Dinner Falls is set in the Mt Hypipamee National Park northwest of Millaa Millaa, southwest of Malanda, and north of Ravenshoe.
From the town of Millaa Millaa, we took the Millaa Millaa-Malanda Rd (Hwy 25) for about 3.2km to the East Evelyn Rd.
Turning left onto the East Evelyn Rd (still on Hwy 25), we then followed it for 14.6km to its junction with the Kennedy Hwy (Hwy 1).
Turning right onto the Kennedy Hwy, we then drove north for about 13km to the turnoff for Mt Hypipamee National Park on our left.
From Ravenshoe, it was 28km north along the Kennedy Hwy until we reached the Mt Hypipamee National Park turnoff on our left.
Even though we didn’t go this way, from the Hwy 1/Hwy 52 junction in the town of Atherton, it would be about 24.5km south from along the Kennedy Hwy (Hwy 1) to the turnoff for the Mt Hypipamee entrance on the right.
Contextually, Malanda is 82km (an hour drive) west of Innisfail, 76km (about 90 minutes drive) south of Cairns, 221km (over 2.5 hours drive) north of Ingham, and 332km (over 4 hours drive) north of Townsville.
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Profile sweep of the lowermost of the sections of the falls
Downstream to upstream sweep with zoom-ins of the middle section of the falls
Back and forth simple sweep of the uppermost section of the falls
Right to left sweep of the lowermost section
Fixated on the segmented middle section
The unusual triangular-shaped upper section
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