A rescue operation at the site lasted almost three hours and involved 27 emergency services workers on Tuesday, after a teenage girl fell and dislocated her ankle, landing 30cms from the edge of the cliff face.

The Mercury understands the 18-year-old had travelled with friends from Goulburn in search of the vantage spot, which is prized among social media users because it frames a photograph high over the ocean, with the bridge snaking artfully into the background.

Visitors have trod makeshift paths to vantage points on the cliff face and shared the directions on numerous travel sites and blogs, but none of the routes are open to the public and none have fencing to protect people from falling.

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Tuesday's emergency came 20 months after a man fell to his death at the site and as residents report a spike in post-isolation visits to formerly sleepy Clifton.

John Bouren, whose Clifton School Parade home looks directly onto an illegal-to-access rail corridor that is being used by some climbers, says the route has never been busier than at the weekend.

"I don't know if it's because of everyone coming out of lockdown, but they all raced down here," said Mr Bouren, a resident of 55 years.

He said traffic from photo-seekers had transformed his suburb and forced the passing trains to slow because of people in the rail corridor.

"The [rail corridor] fence is tight-chained, so they go over the top or underneath it. They go onto the railway line, looking at their phones, looking at the instructions [on how to find the lookout]."

"What they're standing on up there is fringe. It's just grass over crumbling rock."

"I couldn't care less how many poeple come and have a look, but I don't want anyone else dying."

In September 2018 a 24-year-old man died after he sat down on loose gravel on the clifftop, slipped 20 metres to the cliff's edge and plunged 40 metres to his death.

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Seven ambulance vehicles attended Tuesday's emergency. A rescue chopper was also tasked to the site but was called off in mid-air, when rescuers were able to access the rail corridor and walk down the cliff, rather than tackle a 700m uphill climb.

As he worked to arrange the girl's safe extraction, paramedic Norm Rees was stopped multiple times by up to 15 people asking for directions to the "lookout".

"I said, 'I'm not telling you where the track is, but I'll come back and get you if you fall'," Insp Rees told the Mercury.

"It's all crumbling rock - loose ground and gravel. It's just ridiculous where they've gone.

"It's putting a lot of emergency services at risk, coming in to rescue these guys. They're thinking it's fun and they're going to get the photos. They just need to think about the risks that are inherent with it."

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Responding to Tuesday's rescue, another resident, Kitty Jeffrey, railed against the "idiots who want to trespass and get a selfie".

"This is the result!" she wrote, in a post to social media.

"It's no wonder residents are furious - we have been telling police, council and the railways for years but they ignore the situation and let it build. Does anyone have commonsense anymore?

"I see families, parents with little kids in back packs, people with dogs, old, young - all going up to a crumbling cliff face for a selfie."

Late Tuesday, the Mercury was unable to confirm reports that police made multiple visits to the site at the weekend.