HEATON STATE FOREST – 5th September 2026
Last May, Trish M and I went on an adventure looking for access to a couple of cliffs. We didn’t get to the bottom of the cliffs and vowed that we would return. Trish M couldn’t make it this time but Heather R and Trish N were up for the challenge.
This time, we’d walk down the old fire trail then traverse SE into a creek and see if we could get to the base of a cliff which is “56r” (on the map – ie relatively 56m high), then, if the bushwalking gods were with us, we’d make our way around to the cliff which is “116r”.
Heather drove us all the way to the start of the walk in her 4WD. This saved us about 4k of walking on fire trail. We had to cross a couple of big muddy pools, but thankfully Trish checked the depth and everything was fine. We then looked for the old timber-getters track down to the top of the cliff – we started walking at 10am (how civilised).
We stopped at 10.30am for morning tea – Heather pulled out some coffee and biscuits (apparently they go all out on their day walks – I felt spoiled with their morning tea!). We were on the edge of the cliff but the views weren’t that good.
The terrain and vegetation were very friendly, easy-as walking.
Before long we were in the side creek that we wanted to descend. Fingers crossed that we wouldn’t come across a waterfall – we also had to make sure that we didn’t descend anything that we couldn’t climb back up if we had to retrace our steps.
The creek’s getting a bit steeper.
It was really pretty at the top, and interesting going down, you can see behind Trish, that we can see the other side of the major creek, and so we were still quite high.
Eventually we got to the junction of our side creek and the main creek, and that’s when the vegetation became very unfriendly.
We could see the top of the cliff – but no way to get there if we wanted to take a short cut out.
The reason we were at this cliff was that we hoped there was a big cave there, but so far nothing so far.
I was down on a lower level, but Trish and Heather had checked out a possible exit – but turned out to be a no-go. We weren’t impressed with the vegetation so far.
Finally we got to the actual base of the cliff and the scrub started to think out (for a while LOL).
Still not that great. At this point we reassessed our options – it was 11.30am and too hard getting through the scrub (with lawyer vine and native raspberries both of which had thorns that were cutting us), so we decided that if we hadn’t found a good exit by 12.30pm, then we would retrace our steps.
Heather about to investigate another possible exit.
And right on 12.15pm we went around some rocks and there was the cave that I’m sure is what we were looking for. Bit hard for me to climb up to it but eventually made it.
Sad to say, we weren’t the first people to negotiate our way to the cave. Well done “Noel”.
The roof was very nice with a lot of wind erosion. See what a nice day we had, such blue sky.
Quite a high roof.
From the cave, I could see a way forward, and I was hopeful that we would come across the gully that Trish M had gone down back in May – if so, it would be a dead easy exit.
Trish getting ready to make our way around the base of the cave.
I have to say, the route we took (it was the only option), was about 30m above the base of the cliff, and we were actually quite close (1-2m) to the edge, so no photos were taken, I was ensuring that I didn’t trip or slip!!! But, again the bushwalking gods were looking down on us, the route took us straight to the gully and our potential exit route.
We climbed a small section of the gully and stopped right on 12.30pm for lunch, we debated whether or not we’d try to access the 116r cliff but decided we’d leave that for another day. So, we then decide which exit route we’d take (there were 2 options).
We chose to go up the spur along the cliff-face of the 116r cliff, quite steep, about 60m climbing up to where the car was parked and we were there by 1.30pm.
Trish and Heather wanted to go and see the “waterfall” that Trish M and I found in May, so we walked down the fire trail (a 500m walk).
Trish & Heather on the edge of the cliff 20m from the waterfall. Stunning weather but very, very windy, thankfully it was coming from the right direction.
Trish & Heather went down to the waterfall, I started back to the car.
We were back at the car at 2pm then headed down to a lookout for a cold cider (thank you so much Heather!).
So, we found the cafe that I was looking for, I didn’t get hurt (I was super careful as I’m off to Europe on Monday week, didn’t want to hurt myself LOL).
Big thanks to Heather & Trish, hope you’ll come with me next Autumn so we can check out the 116r cliff!
It’s rock lily time and there were heaps on the cliff face, this is a pathetic example, but it was close enough to get a shot of it.