Cobbold Gorge 03.06.2016 – 05.06.2016

We left Mt Surprise looking forward to our next adventure. The drive to Georgetown was uneventful however the road was not the very best, as it went from a 2 lane road down to a single lane, which did make things a little “hair raising” when encountering cars coming from the opposite direction.  We would have to move over so half the car and caravan would drive on gravel, and the other half on the tarred road.

When we eventually arrived into Georgetown we refueled and done some much needed grocery shopping.  There was a small little supermarket so we were able to get most of the basic stuff and a little bit more.

When deciding on going down to Cobbold Gorge we were a little concerned as we knew this road was a gravel road but were reassured by Cobbold Gorge management that this road had been graded and that a lot of people had brought their on-road caravans on this road. We were also reassured from the posts that we had read on Wiki Camps that the road was okay.

Well to be honest, this road was definitely not as great as we were hoping and proved to be the worst driving experience for us so far on this trip. We shook, rattled and rolled slowly down to Cobbold Gorge on roughly 90kms of gravel road taking us approximately 2 hours.  Once we checked into Cobbold Gorge we went on our merry way to our site, with the hard realisation that we are now seriously in the outback, our site was literally like sitting in a sandpit, dust everywhere.

Once we unhitched the caravan it was then we realised the severity of this road, the microwave had come lose from its brackets and thank goodness had not fallen onto the floor.  So handyman Bernie was quick to fix it up.  Our car was covered in dust and when opening up the back of the Ute, it was like someone had exploded a bag of sand in it, not to mention the dust that had come into the caravan it was everywhere.

Information on Cobbold Gorge

Cobbold Gorge

Cobbold Gorge is a breathtaking natural wonder tucked away within the rugged sandstone formations of North Queensland.  Delicate ferns and grasses thrive along the waterline within the gorge.  Native fish flourish in these waters and there is also a healthy population of Johnstone River freshwater crocodiles. 

Queensland's Youngest Gorge in the heart of North Queensland outback

It all began 1700 million years ago...

Cobbold Gorge was created by a series of geological processes. Sand and mud sediment was deposited on what was then the ocean floor until eventually layers built up to be more than 10 kilometres thick. Movement in the Earth’s crust caused the sediments to compress, forming the Hampstead Sandstone. Further movement caused the sedimentary rock to fracture. Torrential, wet seasons over many years spilled torrents of water through the narrow fractures, creating deep gorges and permanent springs and seepages.

Minor movement in recent times (estimated to be 10,000 years ago rather than millions!) have contributed to the formation of the lower reaches of Cobbold Gorge as it is today. The gorge itself is unique as it narrows to a mere 2 metres in places, and is set amid rugged sandstone formations occupying an area of about 80 square kilometres with spectacular, 30 metre cliffs. This narrowness indicates that Cobbold Gorge is the youngest known gorge in Queensland today.

Photos of the infinity pool and restaurant area at Cobbold Gorge

  

We went on a 3 hour tour of the Gorge and its surrounding area, this was a wonderful tour see photos below of this lovely experience.  The first lot of photos are taken from the top of the gorge.

The following photos are from a little boat in the gorge.

The photo below shows the creative artwork of the spiders that live in this gorge.

After our tour we drove to Forsayth to discover this little town and apart from the drive being on the lovely gravel road, we stopped at the little pub in Forsayth for something to eat.  As we walked to our car we noticed our front driver’s side tire was flat, so needless to say we were not too impressed, but hey, it’s another challenge.

Once we were back on the road and on our way to Cobbold Gorge we came across a black headed python basking in the sun on the gravel road and as we came to a screeching halt it politely turned around and tried to hit our car.  Needless to say we were very grateful to have a lot of steel between us and the python.

See photos

Next day we packed up and had our horrible trip back up to Georgetown on this gravel road.

On our arrival into Georgetown we found the only tyre place and luckily he was prepared to repair our puncture on a Sunday.  Then we were off on our merry way.

Our next overnight stop is Croydon then we moved on to Normanton and Karumba.

Map of trip this time