I just happened upon a brochure for this wonderland called Cobbold Gorge when checking into a caravan park one day. How lucky were we to discover this place as it’s totally amazing. I did some more research (as I tend to do a lot) and discovered there is a campground there but the road in is about 85kms from Georgetown (route map) of which the majority is pretty rough dirt.
We then decided to camp in Georgetown and leave the van behind and take a day trip. We pulled into the Goldfields Caravan Park (Facebook) and were happy to find out that they have a happy hour every night – nice. Once on that dirt road we agreed that our Bailey caravan was not “off-road” enough to have taken the journey – good choice!
The gorge is located on the 1284-square-kilometre Robin Hood Cattle station, so named because it adjoined the Sherwood mining lease, has been in the Terry family since 1964. The gorge was discovered by Simon Terry and in 1995 Simon and his new wife Gaye, who together had recently taken on Howlong Station, an area of Robin Hood that includes what is now known as Cobbold Gorge, decided to open a small bush camp so people could visit. It is now a multi award winning tourist destination and we were so glad to visit it.
Welcome
Cobbold Gorge Boat Trip
The first leg of the Gorge Tour is done in a long skinny aluminum boats, seating 14 people and powered at each end by an electric motor – that’s because the boats cannot turn around in the skinny gorge for the return trip.
It is so quiet as we seemed to float through the gorge for about an hour; spotting 3 freshwater crocs and these magical St George spiders who build their webs in such a way the archer fish cannot shoot them down with their spouts of water.
The gorge narrows so much in parts that the people in the boat can virtually spread their arms and touch both sides at once. This is truly a magnificent place.
Electric boats
Cobbold Gorge Walk
Another part of the tour is to walk over the gorge on the recently constructed glass bridge.
We thought that was going to be all but we were totally surprised by the talk provided by our guide, Kev who told us about the environment we were in. There were Gillie Gillie berries which, if eaten, would kill a person in no time at all, with no remedy. Then the various bushes you could use to clean your hands or poison the water to catch fish – all indigenous types of things the bush has to offer.
To complete this part of the tour we donned our protective foot covers and strolled out onto the 11 metre wide glass bridge. Opened in October 2019 it is Australia’s first glass bridge (read the news article). Wow – totally awesome! Especially when the next tour’s boat sailed through right underneath our feet.
Summing up…
- Accommodation – stay in Georgetown at the Goldfields Caravan Park (Facebook) if you don’t have an off-road caravan or even book one of the cabins in the Gorge Village for the night – $25.00 per night (@ 29-Aug-2020)
- What did we think? – If you are ever anywhere near Cobbold Gorge, do yourself a favour and take the trip out.
- Was it value for money? – absolutely – $108 per head
- Would we return? – no – a once off visit but you should go
- Overall Score – 12/10!!!!
- How do you book a tour? – via their website
