Public Trails Computed from official land records

Gold Coast Official spatial — evidence class · Gold Coast · QLD

Gorge Falls

Lawful route — caveats lawful, with something that needs saying first

Community name -28.22839, 153.31601 Springbrook National Park · National Park waterfall

Access verdict · Lawful, with caveats · weakest evidence in the chain: statutory inference

Public land — inside Springbrook National Park. No published track reaches it — the lawful ground to it is a chain of parcels.

Being at this point is lawful on the records below. Getting there is a separate question, answered route by route — and each route carries its own verdict and its own caveats.

What this verdict means · what the evidence grades mean

On-ground signage and temporary closures override this page. Always.

What this place is A definition, then the record

A waterfall — a step in a watercourse steep enough that the water falls clear of the bed rather than running down it. The step is usually a band of harder rock the creek has been unable to cut through as fast as the softer rock below, so the drop moves slowly upstream over time and leaves a gorge behind it.

No watercourse the register names runs within range of Gorge Falls. The layer maps far more creeks than it has ever named, so that is a gap in the record rather than dry ground.

The point falls inside Springbrook National Park, designated National Park. Official spatial — evidence class

The point falls inside Gondwana Rainforests of Australia , a property inscribed on the World Heritage List. That is where the ground is, and it is not a statement about who may walk there — access is the tenure question above. Official spatial — evidence class

The rock at the surface is sedimentary rock, mapped as Neranleigh-Fernvale beds (DCf) , devonian - carboniferous in age. The survey describes it as: Mudstone, shale, arenite, chert, jasper, basic metavolcanics, pillow lava, conglomerate Official spatial — evidence class

The register maps one ecosystem over this ground, each with the share of it the register states.

  • 100% — Eucalyptus saligna or E. grandis, E. microcorys, Lophostemon confertus tall open forest on metamorphics +/- interbedded volcanics 12.11.2 · Least concern Official spatial — evidence class

No register records how far the water falls. What the contours record is this: the terrain rule fired here because the bed loses 15.0 m within 39.3 m along the watercourse — the test the rule applies, not the height of the fall. Its steepest single stretch drops 5.0 m over 2.3 m of ground — 2.2 m down for every metre along the bed. That is a floor and not a total: the contour interval is the smallest drop this layer can show, so the face is at least this steep and may be far more. Statutory inference — evidence class

On the record — what the registers actually say Sources, licences and dataset versions

What each register holds about this place
Claim What the record says Evidence
Name "Gorge Falls" is a community record only — absent from the gazetteer and from the state feature layer. Community — evidence class
Tenure Resolved to Protected estate, recorded as "National Park". Official spatial — evidence class
Parcel 5AP19371 Official spatial — evidence class
Council area This place sits inside Gold Coast, tested against the boundary that council area publishes. Official spatial — evidence class
Estate Springbrook National Park , designated National Park. Declared under the Nature Conservation Act 1992; IUCN category II; 6,554 ha as gazetted; current gazettal 26 Mar 2020; first gazetted 3 Nov 1960; no encumbrance recorded. Official spatial — evidence class
Watercourse No named watercourse in the snapshot runs within range of this point. The layer maps many creeks it has never named. —
Feature Found by the terrain rule falls-rule/1, which fired because the bed loses 15.0 m within 39.3 m — the threshold it tests, not the height of the fall. Steepest stretch measured: 5.0 m over 2.3 m. A rule fired — nobody surveyed it. Statutory inference — evidence class

Officially this place exists only as an unnamed feature on public land. The name is a community record; everything else on this page is computed from gazetted, official spatial or statutory-inference sources, and the two are never mixed.

Where it is

Map — covers Gold Coast

Map of Gorge Falls and the start of the one published approach to it, over the parcels, corridors, estate and tracks around them.

Panning stops just outside Gold Coast, because the map archive is published one council area at a time. Every other council area Public Trails covers has a map of its own.

Every figure the map would draw — parcel references, distances, bearings and the crossing gap — is written out in full on this page, so nothing is only visible on the map. If the map does not load, nothing has been lost.

Is there a track to it No published way within range

No vetted way the managing authority publishes comes within range of this point. That is a fact about the access record, not about the ground: an unmapped pad may well exist, and this site will not invent one on the strength of that.

Approaches — one page each 1 published of 2 computed

2 ways in were computed and 1 is published here. The rest either reach the same ground from a few hundred metres away — the same drive and the same walk — or reach no lawful chain at all, which is only worth saying when nothing else does.

Gorge Falls from Tallebudgera Creek Road

Statutory inference · Lawful, with caveats — evidence class gorge-falls--from-tallebudgera-creek-road
Verdict
Lawful, with caveats
One way
1440.1 m
Caveats
Watercourse crossing

A lawful chain was established from this entry. Open the route page for the legs, the crossings and what each one rests on.

Before you go Published alerts as at the snapshot date

park_alert · Springbrook National Park

Toilets closed at Tallanbana trailhead (update 1 Jul): Queensland Parks and Wildlife Service (QPWS) have determined that visitor amenities situated at the Tallanbana trailhead are not performing to optimum standards.

Published by the managing authority. Follow the link for the current wording; this page carries only what the snapshot held.

park_alert · Springbrook National Park

Unplanned works - Woonoongoora Walkers' Camp (update 9 Jul): The Woonoongoora Walkers’ Camp is closed to new bookings from May to September 2026, due to works in the area. As a result, a temporary closure is in place from May to 30 September 2026, inclusive, weather permitting. Visitors can bypass the camping area and still complete the Gold Coast Hinterland Great Walk.

Published by the managing authority. Follow the link for the current wording; this page carries only what the snapshot held.

On Country

Registered Aboriginal cultural heritage party: Danggan Balun (Five Rivers) People — this point falls inside the registered party boundary. Official spatial — evidence class

A cultural heritage party boundary and a native title claim are different legal things. This page never conflates them, and it publishes neither as a permission.

All land and waters in Queensland carry a duty of care under s.23 of the Aboriginal Cultural Heritage Act 2003 (Qld) — including here. Cultural heritage site locations are restricted by law (ss.38–46), deliberately, for site protection. This site holds party boundaries only and will never republish site locations. Check the public register and, where in doubt, seek guidance from the Aboriginal party for the area.

Searching a register does not of itself satisfy the duty of care.

Rules here — derived from tenure National Park · statutory inference

This point sits on protected estate. In Queensland that ordinarily means no dogs or pets, no open fires outside provided facilities, no camping outside designated areas, no drones without authority, and nothing taken. These follow from the tenure and the legislation that governs it — they are statutory inference, not a copy of a sign.

Statutes relied on: Nature Conservation Act 1992 (Qld) and its regulations for protected estate; Water Act 2000 (Qld) s.21 for watercourse beds; Aboriginal Cultural Heritage Act 2003 (Qld) ss.23 and 38–46 for the duty of care and for why site locations are never republished here.

If something goes wrong

Emergency reference — read this to 000

Location
Gorge Falls (community name — not in any government register), Springbrook National Park
Lot on plan
5AP19371
Coordinates
-28.22839, 153.31601 (WGS84 / GDA2020)
Feature
waterfall

What this place was read from