The best walks and hikes in Family Islands National Park

Kennedy Bay is a long, wild stretch of beach backed by one of the few remaining stands of intact lowland rainforest south of Cape York, with the Family Islands sitting across the water to the east. The bay is named after explorer Edmund Kennedy, who landed here on 24 May 1848 at the start of his ill-fated expedition to Cape York, during which he and most of his party perished. An information panel at the northern end of the beach tells the full story of the expedition, and if you have energy to spare, you can walk the length of the beach all the way to the mouth of the Hull River.

Kennedy Walking Track follows the coast from South Mission Beach to Kennedy Bay, covering about 4 kilometres one way through coastal rainforest, beaches and rocky headlands. Along the way, you’ll pass Lovers Beach, Lugger Bay, Mije Creek and several lookouts with views across the Family Group of Islands, with the chance to spot cassowaries, wallabies, turtles, dolphins, and dugongs. The track is relatively straightforward at first, with the second half having more stairs and some rock-hopping before reaching Kennedy Bay.

Turtle Bay is a small, rocky cove with a shady bench seat right along the track and a great view across the bay toward the Family Islands. Despite its modest size, it’s one of the track’s more distinctive spots, where the rocky shoreline and pandanus palms give it a different character from the sandy beaches earlier in the walk. The bay gets its name from the turtles regularly spotted in the water here, and the bench makes for a great spot to rest before continuing to Kennedy Bay.

Morgans Lookout sits along the Kennedy Walking Track, perched above the coast with a sweeping 180-degree panorama over the Family Islands and the coastline stretching north. There is a small shelter here that’s a great place to take a break from the sun or rain, where you can watch for turtles, a regular sight in the water below. It’s well known as the best viewpoint on the track and a good natural turning point if you choose not to continue to Kennedy Bay.

Lovers Beach is a small, rocky cove just 320 metres from the Kennedy Walking Track trailhead, reached via a raised timber boardwalk that hugs the coastline with dense rainforest on one side and the Coral Sea on the other. A large wooden platform with seating and interpretive signage sits at the beach, making it a lovely stop along the walk. At low tide, you can step down onto the pebbled shore, and the water is often clear enough to spot turtles swimming just offshore.

About 500 metres into the walk, the track opens up to this lookout with a great bench and sweeping views over Bingil Bay and north toward Garners Beach. It’s an easy early payoff reached well before the harder climbing begins, and a good spot to catch your breath before the trail splits into two route options just beyond it. On a clear day, you can see all the way past the bay to the coastline and islands in the distance.

This lookout at the summit is reached via a short side track near the top of the climb, opening up to breathtaking mainland and island views. It’s the same summit the Djiru Aboriginal people traditionally used as a lookout, and later where the Cutten brothers, the area’s first permanent European residents, kept watch for ships, naming their property ‘Bicton’ after a town in Devon, England. From here, the circuit continues around and back down, meeting the original track to descend the way you came up.

Bicton Hill circuit track traverses along a relatively steep hill through tropical lowland rainforest, one of the few remaining undisturbed patches of this forest type left in North Queensland. The track begins on the exposed eastern side of the hill among sturdy brush box and swamp mahogany, then climbs and circles to the sheltered western side where the remnant rainforest grows. If you’re quiet, you might get a chance to spot the elusive cassowary along the way. **Due to a major landslip, the track is temporarily closed and isn’t expected to reopen before the end of September 2026. You can check current QPWS park alerts here: https://parks.qld.gov.au/park-alerts/26052