Earl Hill, Trinity Beach, Cairns

By The Walking Man Down Under On

Following on from my previous theme of walks around Cairns, I decided to return to one local to me called Earl Hill. This was a track I had used many years ago when training to tackle the Kokoda Trail in Papua New Guinea. At that time, the track was quite steep, with high step ups, which I needed to train for Kokoda. I would go up and down it about 3 times, with my backup, to strenghten my legs.

Over the last couple of years, the local Council has completed a lot of work on the track, taking out many of the high step ups and putting in a more zig zag track. This has made the track much easier and the steps which have been installed are very good.

The track starts off quite gently and is certainly in good condition
The high step ups have been removed and replaced with nice steps. They still make you work out though as there are plenty of them.
As I said previously, lots of steps have been installed, which makes the track easier and safer, but still gives you a good work out.
More steps and a good track gives you a good workout. Earl Hill has an elevation gain of 194 metres, but certainly is worth the effort.
The view from the top looking North towards Palm Cove and Double Island.
The view from the top looking South towards Cairns City. An additional benefit if you are a plane spotter, is that the hill is very close to the northern approach for planes to Cairns Airport. You can see one in this picture on its approach.
A surprise on the way up, was that the Council had added a new track called the Bakarra Track. This made the track really worth while, an additional, as it turned out 3kms on an unduating track, more steps and finishing at Trinity Beach was a great new addition.
The Bakarra Track was really nice and went through some lovely vegetation.
Looking back up to the Earl Hill summit from the Bakarra Track
The stairs down to Trinity beach. From Summit to the Sea !!
On the beach, looking towards Double Island off Palm Cove.

I headed back up the Bakarra Track to rejoin the Earl Hill track and back down that to the start. There is no parking at the start of the track, so you have to park a little bit away from the start in a car park by the boat club. My Garmin told me I had done just over 7kms, with a total elevation gain of 395 metres. It took me 1 hour and 46 minutes, but would be faster if I hadn’t stopped for pictures etc. All in all though a really good workout. The track can sometimes have quite a bit of traffic on it, but thats not a problem with the new track in place.