Valley of Echoes via Albert River Circuit

A lesser used walk starting at O'Reillys and spawning from the Border track.

Getting there

Make the drive through Canungara up to the O'Reilly's guest house. The walk starts as part of the Border track.

Maps

I used the O'Reilly's guest house trail map, bought for a few dollars just before leaving. It's not highly detailed, but gives you enough information to complete the walk.

Route/Trail notes

Starting from across the road from the guesthouse, follow the Border track. The first hour is a highway, and you'll come across all sorts of hikers as the track starts as a grade 1 paved track. There are two tracks leading from the right of the border track to the Albert River Circuit, approximately 200 metres apart. They are both well signed so you can't miss them. From memory, they are about 5 kms into the border track.

We took the second exit and almost immediately the highway became a little goat track. The path is easily distinguishable and it should be almost impossible to get lost. The path is very muddy and intersected by numerous water flows, making the footing a bit unstable at times. I ended up in the mud a few times!

Eventually the rainforest starts thinning out and the track swung around to the right and began following the edge of the Valley of Echoes. The path becomes very narrow at points with quite a steep fall to the left, so watch your footing. There are a few spots to stop and appreciate the view all the way to the Pacific.

After a while there is an old school marker signifying 5 or 8 miles to O'Reilly's. Not too far past this is a sign for the Echo Point lookout. A quick jump on some rocks and it's a great place to sit and eat lunch.

Unfortunately, while we were there the weather turned for the worst, so we had to turn back without finishing the whole circuit as we weren't at the halfway point yet.

A medium walk, as it is quite a distance. We probably covered 14 kms in our day without reaching the halfway point of the Circuit itself. At a good pace we did this in about 3.5 hours.