Difficulty: 9/10
Reward: 9.5/10 (on a clear day!)
Reward vs Effort: 8/10
Distance: between 11 and 18 km, depending on the route taken and detours
As the local's call it, Lamb's Head is in our top 3 hikes in Far North Queensland. It offers incredible views across Copperlode Dam and Cairns City, and detour trails that provide stunning views over the Mareeba/Tablelands area.
Conveniently located in the Davie's Creek National Park, just over an hours drive from Cairns, you can even take a dip at Davies Creek Falls (made famous by the add for Great Northern) after your hard work.
Camping is available in the area through Queensland Parks, so why not camp the night and tie in a short trip up Turtle Rock (see blog for further details). Make sure you book in advance as camping spots book out early for popular times in the year.
What do you need to know?
The hike starts in the Davies Creek National Park not far from the town of Mareeba. The trail head is located quite a distance into the national park, after the camp sites.
There are two different entry points for the trail. The trail we usually take it the first "Ridge Trail"and is pictured below. This is the first of the two trail starters that you will come across on the Davies Creek Rd. However you can also start at the Kahlpahlim Rock walking trail (which is slightly longer), which is approximately 2km further down the road and signified the end of the road.
Carpark:
As this is a relatively well-known hike, the trail is worn and very well marked by orange arrows (which to reflect in the dark if you are hiking by headlight).
Not far into the trail you will have to cross a small creek, however this is the only creek crossing on the trail and in the numerous times we have done this hike, have never gotten our feet wet.
In keeping with our theme of being "real" we won't lie, the initial phase of this hike from the Ridge Trail is bloody hard and steep. As our most recent adventure was in the dark (for sunrise) is felt 10 times worse, it literally felt like we did not stop going up and our calves were on fire!
Once you get through the difficult "up phase" you will continue through bushland for some time, until you hit a big rock, follow the directions and turn left, keep walking alongside the rock.
As we mentioned there are a couple of different tracks, one of the tracks is actually found by climbing up these rock formations that you will be passing on your right. It is not marked, but it does lead to a good lookout. We have taken a photo below of the unofficial track "up the rocks" and the views on a good day.
If you are focussed on the main headline, then continue past the rocks downwards, through fallen trees, the track remains marked throughout and eventually the markers will take you right and up another steep section. The markers can be difficult to find in this area, but they are there, so if you lose them, we recommend backtracking until you locate them to set your route right.
When you get to the top of the last steep section, there is almost a T-junction. You want to turn left and keep going until you pop out at the tower pictured below. Remember this T-junction as we will talk about it later.
Continue straight past the tower, and don't stop to feel disappointed, as the track continues through the trees at the end of this image (see picture below). At this point you will be ready for your reward after all that effort you have put in. It is sad to say that hikers before you have actually stopped at the cell tower thinking this was the peak. It can be overgrown to look hard for the yellow arrows to continue another 100ms or so. On Sarah's first trip up, she actually had to contact a friend who had recommended the hike as she refused to believe all the effort had been in vain when she reached the cell tower!
If you had turned right at the T-junction (which is not a marked or signed T-junction), you would have seen a massive rock which is the rock you had been hiking around on your way to Lamb's Head. You can actually scramble up this section and also be rewarded with some pretty epic views (on a good day).
Whilst this is a circuit track, the circuit is not at the end of the track, it is somewhere roughly halfway along the trail, and is marked by a small post with orange arrows:
You can continue back the way you came, which is what we usually do, or you can complete the circuit, however you will then also have to walk back to your car as the cark parks are in different locations. Sarah has taken this option a couple of times before and she reckons it is one of the longest, soul destroying 2km walks you will ever do!
Take note! not long after you pass the intersection for the two trails there is an opportunity to get lost. Whilst looking at the below photo you might say, how could you get lost with those two orange arrows pointing blatantly left. Trust me, we have done this hike a fair few times and every time we turn right initially, walk maybe 10 minutes and realise we have fallen for the same trap. Just be careful and if you haven't seen a marker for awhile, back track until you find one!
Our failed sunrise attempt: On our last trip up to Lamb's Head we decided it was finally time to attempt it for sunrise. We had seen some pretty epic sunrise pics on social media hiking pages we follow. After a pretty miserable winter and determined not to repeat the mistakes of our sunrise attempts on the Pyramid the previous year where it poured rain, we waited until it was way too hot, but the weather presumably more stable in order to bag an epic sunrise on our favourite mountain. We left Cairns at 2am and made our way to the start of the hike. Rochelle's husband had done a good job of scaring us into thinking snakes would fall onto our heads and with both of us still a bit freaked out by our recent encounters of wild pigs, we blasted sweet tunes to the likes of Beyoncé, Ed Sheeran and Mike Posner as we slogged our way up the track with the promise of the best sunrise we were ever going to see. Mother nature had other plans for us however. On arrival at our 'viewing platform' we were anxious at the site of a cloud filled sky. We had made great time on the way up so we convinced ourselves we just had to be patient and the clouds would clear in time for the designated sunrise time of 5:46am. Well, 5:46 came and went but the clouds did not. Turns out jut because a weather forecast says 0% chances of rain, this does not guarantee you an epic sunrise. After questioning the universe what we had done so wrong in our lives, we admitted defeat and made our way back to the car, swearing to never attempt a hike for sunrise again.
Truth is, we love this hike and really hope that if you get up early to try to capture a sunrise, that you get better views than we did! Maybe learn to read the weather better then we can?
Sarah's experience: several years earlier, I convinced two of my work colleagues to join me on this hike. I had completed it once before and loved it and was keen to do it again. We started from the Kahlpahlim Rock walking trail at about 7:30am. After an uncalculated amount of time, our steady incline turned into a downhill bush bash. This was also the point we realised we hadn't seen an orange marker for a fair while. We could hear water running below so we decided to continue downhill as we collectively agreed heading uphill at this point would have been plain hard work. Once we hit the creek, we pulled out our cartoon variation of the map I had snapped a picture of and assumed as the track ran parallel to the creek we would eventually find it. Not to be. 3km later the creek bed dried up. We scaled up the side of a mountain and found ourselves in thick dense bush. Oh dear. We walked purposelessly for seemingly a long time, util we found a spot of reception where we downloaded a topographical map and compass. We gestimated where we thought we were on the map, set our compass app and somehow luckily found the track again several hours later, finally reaching the car again at 5:30pm, sore, sorry and pretty cut up from the hours of bush bashing.
This little misadventure provided a couple of valuable lessons to us. We were exceptionally lucky to make it out before nightfall, but not everybody is, and we very easily could have found ourselves lost in the bush overnight. 1. Make sure you are carrying plenty of water, snacks and supplies. 2. Carry a proper map of the track you are going to be hiking/ have a gps or alltrails app on your phone. 3. Backtrack until you find the orange arrows, no matter how hard or steep it may be.
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