Fitzroy Falls is located at the north-eastern end of 162000ha Morton National Park. One of the state's largest national parks it contains a sizeable portion of the Southern Highlands. There is a well equipped old-fashioned general store, antique store, pottery, berry farm, riding school - and even sailing and fishing on the lake.
The main attraction to Fitzroy Falls is the waterfall itself. The waterfall was originally called Throsby's Waterfall, after Charles Throsby, who was one of the first explorers and settlers of the Southern Highlands. He passed near the falls in 1818 en route to Jervis Bay. They were renamed in 1850 during a visit by Sir Charles Fitzroy, governor of NSW (1846-51) and governor-general of the colonies (1851-55). 4000 acres were reserved in 1882 and the road to the site was improved.
Morton National Park's features include rugged sandstone cliffs, deep and well-forested valleys, and the Clyde, Shoalhaven, Endrick, and Kangaroo Rivers - the waterways which supplied the water races of the old goldfields in the west of the park. The initial land was set aside in 1938 due to the work of Mark Morton.
Due to its size the park features a number of landforms, climatic circumstances and habitats - sedgeland, woodland, heath and rainforests. The transition from one to another can be quite dramatic. There is a diversity of flora and fauna. There are wildflowers in abundance on the plateaux, giant turpentine trees below the major cliffs, coachwood and black ash in abundance and true rainforest canopy where the soil is richest. The park has numerous birds of prey, including hawks, wedge-tailed and other eagles, plus parrots, honeyeaters, lorikeets, crimson rosellas, cuckoos, cormorants, grebes, lyrebirds and two threatened species - the swamp parrot and eastern bristle bird. There are also macropods, bandicoots, the dunnart, possums, echidnae and dingoes, plus the marsupial mice, snakes and lizards upon which the predators feed.
Around Fitzroy Falls are sandstone plateaux populated by forest, woodland and light scrub. The trees are predominantly stringybark, peppermint, scribbly gum and old man banksia. The many shrubs along the paths include curly sedge, sunshine wattle, broad-leaved hakea, trigger plant and mountain devil.
