Thursday, September 15, 2011

Joy Falls

I had a ripper trip to Joy Falls and the unnamed falls on Tier Creek recently. Easiest access was exactly as per the map extracts posted by Walkintas on bushwalk.com. In fact, rather than print a 1:25,000 map, I just copied screen shots to my phone and followed that.
Joy Falls
The spur road to Joy Falls (Joy 3) is too overgrown for a car but made for easy walking. At the end of the spur I just kept going in the same general direction for a few minutes. The ground soon sloped steeply downward and I reached some cliffs which gave an excellent view of the falls a short distance up the valley.
Joy Creek above the falls
Being a rather mad waterfall bagger, I contoured around to the top of the falls where some interesting scrambling was needed to see the whole fall plunging away below me. Very impressive but dangerous too. The cliffs are extremely crumbly. I returned to the car by walking up the other side of the valley and using old logging roads via Kangaroo Plain.
Joy Falls from above
The curvy track leading to the unnamed falls on Tier Creek was drivable as it has recently been logged. I left the car at the point closest to the falls and walked a few metres to the edge of the coupe where the terrain dropped away very steeply. These falls were just as spectacular as Joy Falls but harder to view. I had to do some nasty scrambing to reach a point halfway down the falls on the far side where both main drops could be viewed from one place.
Where Tier Creek drops suddenly from view.  I had to scramble down to investigate further.
The two waterfalls were interesting geomorphologically. They both feature a distinctive alternate route over the cliffs which is likely to have been the original waterfall before the current cleft opened up to let the water escape at a lower level. I expect the crumbly nature of the rock in that area means these falls probably change path quite rapidly.
Upper falls on Tier Creek
I'm suddenly inspired by NE Tas waterfalls. I've been to Lilydale, Ralphs & Mathinna Falls but there's a host of others to visit such as Meetus, Lost, Hardings, Kohls, etc etc. Hopefully there will be some more rain in the NE before the summer dries things up. Fun fun fun.
Lower falls on Tier Creek