Public Trails Computed from official land records

Sunshine Coast · Mapleton Falls

Mapleton Falls from Mapleton Falls Road

entry is a track 0 m of climb chain confidence Official spatial — evidence class mapleton-falls--from-mapleton-falls-road-2

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

A lawful approach from Mapleton Falls Road.

The chain below runs entirely across land the public has an established right to be on. It is a legal line, not a path: nothing here has been surveyed on the ground.

What this verdict means · what the evidence grades mean

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

Getting to the start The trailhead coordinate, not the feature

The start is at -26.63219, 152.84181

That is Mapleton Falls Road, where the walk below begins — 152 m of it. Every link here goes to that coordinate and never to the feature itself, because a driving route to a waterfall is a driving route into the country above one.

-26.63219, 152.84181

The record does not say what reaches the start The roads layer leaves trafficability unstated on most of its rows, and it is unstated here. That is an absence of evidence, not an ordinary road: treat the last stretch as unresearched.

The coordinate is where the recorded way begins, read off the same layers as the walk. What the record says about a vehicle is above, and it describes this point rather than the drive to it. Whether the road is sealed, gated, or open today, and where a car may lawfully be left, are none of them things these records say — so treat the last few kilometres as unresearched, and the mapping service's route to them as its own work, not ours.

The chain, leg by leg Computed from cadastral geometry; never walked

Legs of the computed corridor, in order, with the grade of the record that made each one lawful
# Runs along Parcel / reference Mapped along it Distance Bearing Evidence
1 Track Mapleton Falls Road nothing mapped 109.6 m 343.1° NNW Official spatial — evidence class
2 Track Mapleton Falls Bottom Car Park nothing mapped 41.9 m 345.0° NNW Official spatial — evidence class
Total no way mapped 151.5 m Chain confidence Official spatial — evidence class

Every leg above is computed from cadastral geometry. Nobody has walked it, and no part of it is a path on the ground: it is the line along which the public record establishes a right to be. Where a leg names a way, that is what a managing authority has mapped down the same ground — it says nothing more about your right to be there, which the parcel already settled.

Following it on the ground Every step ends at something you can check

under a quarter hour out and back

at least under a quarter hour there at least under a quarter hour back

0 m up and 10 m down on the way out — so the return leg climbs 10 m.

Walking only — nothing is counted for rest, water, photographs, navigation, or the state of the track.

Naismith's rule, and what it does not account for

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

Mapleton Falls Road 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. The walk below is published on that basis, with the viewpoint as its destination rather than the place itself.

  1. Follow Mapleton Falls Road for 110 m, setting off NNW (343°), to the junction with Mapleton Falls Bottom Car Park.

    Back: 163° along Mapleton Falls Road, 110 m from the start.

  2. Follow Mapleton Falls Road for 42 m, setting off NNW (345°), to arrive.

    Back: 165° along Mapleton Falls Road, 152 m from the start.

152 m in total, along the way the managing authority publishes. Every step above ends at something the records let you check on the ground. Bearings are true, not magnetic: they match a phone compass with no conversion. In this part of Queensland a magnetic bezel reads about 11° east of them, so an analogue compass needs that taken off before you set it.

What each step ends at, and why Official spatial — evidence class
junction
A junction with another published way. Unmissable on the ground, and the place a wrong turn happens.
destination
The place itself, which is always where the last step ends.

A cadastral parcel boundary is never one of them. It is invisible on the ground, so a step that ended at one could never be checked — however convenient it looks in the data.

How much climbing Read off the published contour layer

Distance along the route, 0 to 133.6 m · height 385.0 to 395.0 m Read off 5.0 m contours along the route's own line Official spatial — evidence class
Total climb
0.0 m
Total descent
10.0 m
Steepest sustained
12.4% over 80.8 m
Contour interval
5.0 m
Every height the contours record along this route
Contour crossings along the route, in order, as distance along the route against mapped height
Distance along Height
52.9 m 395.0 m
94.5 m 390.0 m
133.6 m 385.0 m

The profile is the height the contour layer already records, read along the same line the legs above describe. It is not a survey of a path: nothing here says the ground between two contours is even, and a layer of 5.0 m contours cannot evidence a step smaller than the gap between them.

The line on the ground

Map

Route map: 2 legs from Mapleton Falls Road, 151.5 m in total.

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.

What this verdict rests on Grades compose to the weakest link

  • The destination sits on Mapleton Falls National Park Official spatial — evidence class

    Parcel 137NPW674, recorded tenure "National Park". Being at the destination and reaching it are separate questions, and this page answers only the second.

    Cadastre and protected-area estate layers Attribution licensed

  • Leg 1: Mapleton Falls Road carries a right of passage Official spatial — evidence class

    109.6 m at 343.1°. A track recorded by the managing authority in its published access layer, at the vetting status that layer states.

    Leg reference Mapleton Falls Road Grade official_spatial

  • Leg 2: Mapleton Falls Bottom Car Park carries a right of passage Official spatial — evidence class

    41.9 m at 345.0°. A track recorded by the managing authority in its published access layer, at the vetting status that layer states.

    Leg reference Mapleton Falls Bottom Car Park Grade official_spatial

If something goes wrong

Emergency reference — read this to 000

Location
Mapleton Falls, Mapleton Falls National Park
Lot on plan
137NPW674
Coordinates
-26.63056, 152.84111 (WGS84 / GDA2020)
Feature
waterfall

What this approach was read from