Living on the edge at Windin Falls

Posted On April 15, 2021

January 2021

Windin Falls is probably the best waterfall I have been to in Queensland – maybe even Australia. I feel like it has become more popular but it is still somewhat of a hidden gem. I mean look at that view, its simply stunning!

Where is Windin Falls?

Windin Falls is located 80km south of Cairns in the Atherton Tablelands, it took us about an hour and a half to drive there from Cairns and the route is so beautiful and scenic you may want to stop for photo ops along the way. I really love the Atherton Tablelands, its so lush and beautiful throughout the year – we went in January just after the wet season so there was plenty of water in the falls but if you want the iconic shot of being in the “infinity pool” you probably need to wait for it to dry up a bit – the water was flowing far too hard and you would just end up over the edge. For more info on the falls check out Parks and Forests site Windin Falls walking track.

How long does the hike take to Windin Falls?

We ended up getting to the falls a lot later then we expected and were concerned that we would run out of daylight – we took off for the hike at 2pm. But the walk is quite easy, reasonably flat, it was a bit muddy in places but there were no real hard places. It took us about two hours to get to the falls. When you get to the falls, you do have to go down a steep incline but that wasn’t overly hard. Really beautiful walk and a lot of tree cover so nice to be relatively sun safe the whole way.

The falls are beautiful, seriously the best spot to take a picnic and just enjoy the amazing views, fly your drone, take some gorgeous shots of the valley. Its so picturesque.

We went on a Tuesday and it wasn’t school holidays so we were surprised to see a number of other people come and go, but we did get to enjoy it all to ourselves for a short time. We went for a dip upstream, the water was refreshing and super clean as it had been flowing well in the wet season.

The hike back from Windin Falls

We walked back at about 4:30pm, it only took us an hour or so to get back which was a bit of a spin out cause it took us two hours to walk there and the road isn’t a hard uphill trek or anything. Another couple of people got back just after us and they said the same thing – we all had watches on that recorded the journey back as so much quicker and less distance – strange!