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

Mapleton Falls

Track to a place to see it from a published way, with steps to follow

Gazetted name Difficulty: Unclassified -26.63056, 152.84111 Mapleton Falls National Park · National Park waterfall

Access verdict · Lawful, nothing to flag · weakest evidence in the chain: official spatial record

Public land — inside Mapleton Falls National Park. A published track reaches it.

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.

Mapleton Falls sits on Pencil Creek. The surveyed centreline of that watercourse runs 1.5 m from the recorded point, which is the whole evidence for saying it is this one. Official spatial — evidence class

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

The point falls outside every World Heritage property the state maps.

The rock at the surface is basalt, mapped as Tv-SEQ (Tv) , tertiary in age. The survey describes it as: Mainly basalt flows 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 tall open forest on Cainozoic igneous rocks 12.8.8 · Of 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 13.4 m along the watercourse — the test the rule applies, not the height of the fall. Its steepest single stretch drops 5.0 m over 2.6 m of ground — 1.9 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	"Mapleton Falls" is a gazetted register entry.	Gazetted — evidence class
Tenure	Resolved to Protected estate, recorded as "National Park".	Official spatial — evidence class
Parcel	137NPW674	Official spatial — evidence class
Council area	This place sits inside Sunshine Coast, tested against the boundary that council area publishes.	Official spatial — evidence class
Estate	Mapleton Falls National Park , designated National Park. Declared under the Nature Conservation Act 1992; IUCN category II; 26 ha as gazetted; current gazettal 18 May 2001; first gazetted 17 Feb 1973; no encumbrance recorded.	Official spatial — evidence class
Watercourse	Pencil Creek, whose surveyed centreline runs 1.5 m away.	Official spatial — evidence class
Feature	Found by the terrain rule falls-rule/1, which fired because the bed loses 15.0 m within 13.4 m — the threshold it tests, not the height of the fall. Steepest stretch measured: 5.0 m over 2.6 m. A rule fired — nobody surveyed it.	Statutory inference — evidence class

Where it is

Map

Map of Mapleton Falls and the starts of the 13 published approaches to it, over the parcels, corridors, estate and tracks around them.

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 Measured in plan and in section

The way reaches somewhere to see it from Official spatial — evidence class

Mapleton Falls Bottom Car Park passes 50 m from the recorded point. There is 15 m of climb or drop between the two, read at a 5.0 m contour interval. The contours give the height between them and never which way round it is, so this is a separation and not a descent to plan.

The register signs this way for this place, and it comes within reach of it and stops above or below it — so it is where the walk is meant to end, and what it ends at is a view rather than the feature itself. No approach to it is published from here, though: that is a separate question about who may lawfully cross the ground in between, and the approaches below are where it is answered.

Approaches — one page each 13 published of 45 computed

45 ways in were computed and 13 are 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.

Mapleton Falls from causeway or floodway track (Queensland Parks and Wildlife Service)

Official spatial · Lawful, with caveats mapleton-falls--from-causeway-or-floodway-track-queensland-parks-and-wildlife-service

Verdict: Lawful, with caveats
One way: 1739.8 m
Caveats: Corner-point junction