Millstream Falls

Big Millstream Falls plunges over the edge of a basalt lava flow — the columns of an ancient eruption now forming the lip of what's reputedly the widest single-drop waterfall in Australia. The park sits in the rain shadow of the Great Dividing Range on Jirrbal Country, on the western edge of the Wet Tropics World Heritage Area; the vegetation is dry open eucalypt woodland, in stark contrast to the rainforest only kilometres east. A 340m bitumen path leads from the carpark to the viewing platform; from there, a longer 680m circuit takes you down to the base. Little Millstream Falls — slender cascades cutting through huge boulders, with a deep swimming hole at the foot — sits 500 metres upstream off Wooroora Road via a separate entrance. The Big Falls don't permit swimming; the Little Falls do. The park also holds the remains of 1940s training camps that hosted up to 100,000 Australian troops between 1943 and 1945 — the Battalions of the 7th and 9th Divisions — and a 1km World War II heritage walk follows the surviving tent sites, corduroy roads, parade grounds and trenches.

Big Millstream Falls is 3.5km south-west of Ravenshoe on the Kennedy Highway. A steep but sealed track runs 680m return down to the lookout — about 15 minutes' walking, with rock seats along the way and at the lookout. At 88m across it is reputedly the widest single-drop waterfall in Australia, and it is at its best after wet-season rain.