Valley of Diamonds

GPS Tracks

2019 04 28 Valley of Diamonds (GPX)

Starting from the same location as the normal day walks, it goes all the way to Perseverance Dam and then boulder-hopping all of the way up the gorge before a quick scramble up to Koonin Lookout

Lookouts

Bird Watching

Scrambling or Climbing

No Dogs Permitted

No Camping Permitted

Eucalypt Forest

Add to
My Wishlist

Tick Walk

Getting there

Starts at the end of the day-use parking lot, with all of the other day walks.

Maps

Which maps cover the area?

Route/Trail notes

Follow the day walks to the Cascades and cross over where there are steps. Follow a marked track on the other side of the creek until you hit an access road. Keep following the road until i turns left and then a well defined track (with occasional markers) will turn right. Once you hit the sandy bed of perserverance creek, cross over and follow the creek on the left side. There's some markers and trails, but at some points it may be easier to switch sides. Eventually there's an access road on the left of the creek bed. Follow that up and to Perserverance Dam.

After lunch at the Dam, retrace your steps to the sandy creek bed, but stick to the right of the creek. Eventually the sides raise up and you are in the valley of diamonds! Lots of rock hopping will be required, your feet will probably get wet. Eventually there's the confluence with Cressbrook Creek. Follow the gorge to the left. Once you see Koonin Lookout high above, there's a rocky gully to the right. If you keep walking and hit the pool you've gone too far. Scramble up the gully and follow the trail to Koonin Lookout and then the day trails all the way back.

Permits/Costs:

None.

Other References/Comments:

None provided.

GPS Tracks

2019 04 28 Valley of Diamonds (GPX)

Comments

Recent bushfires have caused the trail markers to and track to be hard to find (well we couldn’t find them anyway!) we found the first part of the hike much harder to both navigate and hike than the valley itself.

Exit from valley of diamonds is very easy to spot. Has been marked with tape in the trees and rock cairns.

Took us 6.5 hours but we didn’t go all the way to the lake and it took us longer than anticipated to navigate the start. GPS and map and compass required.
Kirsty on 18 Jul, 2020

A great hike. i didnt go all the way to perserverance dam. from the dry creek bank and up the gorge. gps dot points are from the cairn in the gorge. from carpark to carpark loop took me around 3 hr 20 mins. Saw an eastern grass owl on the hike. its a pity but the gorge is so dry, not even a flow or trickle. overall a great part of the world.
Cheers.
-27.261787,152.118799 cairn in gorge

-27.260503,152.152.116 at top of rock scramble from cairn

-27.260356,152.152.116 cairn at top of hill

-27.259719,152.152.116 cairn of hill can see koonan lookout

-27.259567,152.152.116 found the path
Chris Park on 15 Aug, 2019

Very Rough walk at the moment as Lantarna has taken over the creek. You would be very lucky to be able to follow the old track markers without tearing up legs and arms. I was surprised how easy it was to follow the track from the cascades to the start of Perserverence Creek. From there to Perserverence Dam was the tough challenge scrambling my way through Lantarna. However it looks as though this weed had been poisoned recently so maybe council is working on clearing the track again, which would be awesome.

I was blessed with someone who had built up a stone pyramid where the rock gully is to exit up to Koonin lookout otherwise this would be tough to spot. I give the advice of look for the lookout when you spot it start looking out to the right for that gully!

All in all a challenge but some nice views. With lantarna cleared this would be a really nice walk! It took me 7hrs and 3 litres of water.
Petra Kliese on 16 Sep, 2017

Nice walk with small gentle climbs. Did this with middle aged children. Stopped off on bottlebrush waterhole on way back to cool off.
CassyN on 17 Jan, 2017

I did this track in a quite warm day. If you don't know how to navigate have a gps and a map I don't recommend you to try this track. The instructions here described are not enough to find your way up
to the damp and back to the car park. Basically everything looks the same. So references like follow this creek aren't really helpful. I'll do it again just more prepared
c on 16 Apr, 2016

An easy going hike with a spectacular view at the end and a couple of swimming holes in between.
Bretto64 on 22 Feb, 2015

The Australian Bush
Shell on 4 Jan, 2015

An amazing walk and one well worth doing. There are a few things I would have liked to know before I set out though.

1. Be ready for some serious rock hopping. Once you start following the river bed, it is all rock hopping. Great fun, but it is not easy going.

2. There is one exit out of the river on the right, via what is described as "distinct rocky gully". This is more like creak tributary that joins the main river. It is steep and is different to the rest of the rocks as they are round boulders not so much sandstone and granite like the rest of the gorge. The tributary is only a couple of meters wide, heads up a hundred meters or so and is quite overgrown. It is not hard to climb but it had us second guessing ourselves.
3. Once at the top of the boulder climb, it doesn't join with a track (not that we could tell) heading left (north) along the top of the cliff should see you intersect the main walking track and out via the main Koonin Lookout track. When you hit the track head right to exit the mark at the car park, left takes you too the lookout and then you turn around to come back again. If you hit a vehicle track first, left will take you to the Koonin lookout track (turn right onto the Koonin track to head out), right will take you to the northern park boundary and a locked gate.
4. Many of the track descriptions say that once you cross the Crestbrook Creek Confluence, to look high on the right for Koonin lookout. If you know what that looks like, you might be in luck, if you don't...well you will only be guessing. There are no man made lookout structures that we could see. You could assume it is the Highest point on the right hand cliff face but I am still not sure... Assuming that is the lookout, the exit out of the gully is about 200m back from there or about two thirds of the way up from Crestbrook creek.
We also found another section that looked like an exit just nor the of the correct one. But it was a slip and was obviously a dangerous route that looked to be a way out but a little common sense had us seeking another way.

All up, even though we got a little lost and had to do some back tracking, it was an amazing walk. The river system and rock pools were such a nice area to explore and knowing the correct track in and out, I will spend more time exploring next time. Well worth the effort.

Last tip, it was very warm in the river system. Take more water than usual.

Enjoy

Hurls
Hurls on 27 Sep, 2014

Overshot the scramble up to Koonin's Lookout and had a ridiculously hard bush-bashing scramble. Totally worth it though.
Allan Allport on 29 Aug, 2014