How a stunning outback gorge stayed hidden for centuries

The history of Cobbold Gorge sounds like a tall tale – a 30-metre-deep outback gorge escaping detection to all but the Ewamian traditional owners until 1992, despite the area around it having been farmed for almost a century.

Spring-fed Cobbold Gorge flows year-round, and SUPing is a gentle and immersive way to explore it.Credit: Cobbold Gorge

When I first heard that story, I was incredulous. How could such a landmark gorge, six hours' drive inland from Cairns, go undiscovered by generations of station owners and workers, even as they routinely watered their cattle outside its narrow mouth?

It's not until I'm looking down onto the gorge and the surrounding landscape from a helicopter that such a blind spot seems in any way conceivable.

"Some people say this reminds them of the Bungle Bungles," says pilot Ricky as we fly over a convoluted and impenetrable landscape on Howlong Station. From above, the earth looks irreparably broken. Hundreds of fractures run through an 80-square-kilometre expanse of sandstone, slicing the rock as neatly as bread. On foot, there'd be no way over it, and there's certainly no way through it.

Cobbold Gorge is just one of these cracks, deeper and wider than all others, but visible from afar even now only by the glass bridge that straddles it.

I'm travelling with Ricky on a sunset heli-picnic flight, choppering out into the so-called "sandstone country" with an Esky filled with wine, cheese and crackers. I will be dropped on a buttress of rock overlooking the wide Agate Creek valley, sharing a vibrant outback sunset only with the occasional passing black cockatoo.

Cobbold Gorge features Australia’s first fully glass bridge.

The picnic flight is one of a diverse collection of experiences that have developed around Cobbold Gorge since it was discovered by station owner Simon Terry 30 years ago. Combined walking and boat tours run daily through the dry season. Australia's first fully glass bridge spans the gorge, 17 metres above Cobbold Creek, and helicopters head to hidden fishing holes. At the gorge's sprawling accommodation and camping village, kayaks splash across a large dam, and visitors laze in an infinity pool.

Most curious of all in this outback setting are stand-up paddleboard (SUP) tours, drifting deep into Cobbold Gorge.

From anywhere but within the gorge, the idea of such a water activity feels like a mirage. The surrounding savannah is sparse and dry, and the gorge feeds into the wide, dry bed of the Robertson River. In contrast, spring-fed Cobbold Gorge flows year-round, and SUPing is a gentle and immersive way to explore it.

Cobbold Gorge Village’s infinity pool.

From beside a pontoon at the mouth of the gorge, I push my board out into Cobbold Creek and begin paddling upstream, moving as a small flotilla with a half-dozen other paddlers. For a time, the gorge is wide and open, with the rim of its cliffs lit by the late-afternoon sun. The riverbanks sit empty, though on a boat tour earlier in the day, a handful of freshwater crocodiles, one as large as 1.5 metres, had been sunning along these rocks. Around 15 freshwater crocodiles inhabit the gorge, but now they are somewhere beneath me, unseen in the 20-metre-deep water.

The navigable section of Cobbold Gorge is about 840 metres in length, but the experience is like burrowing into the Earth. Quickly, the cliffs close in and Australia’s first fully glass bridge, installed in 2019, passes high overhead. Scoured by water and rock, the cliffs curl and swirl in waves of rock, and Archer fish lurk just below the creek’s surface, waiting to shoot insects out of the air with jets of water.

The navigable section of Cobbold Gorge is about 840 metres in length, but the experience is like burrowing into the Earth.

The only sound is the splash of our paddles as we stand balanced on the wide boards, and soon I can spread my arms wide and almost touch both walls of the dark gorge. The narrowness of the gorge is an indication of Cobbold’s youth. Formed just 12,000 to 14,000 years ago, it is Queensland’s youngest gorge, eroding over that short time into this virtual paper cut in the Earth. Eventually, across coming millennia, the gorge will further erode into a much wider chasm.

At the gorge's end, we turn the SUPs and begin to drift downstream, squeezing back between the cliffs and beneath the glass bridge. We've been inside the gorge for an hour, immersed in a water world that's more tranquil than turbulent. It's the outback, but not as you know it.

The Details

Travel
Fly to Cairns or Townsville with Virgin, Qantas or Jetstar. Cobbold Gorge is a six-hour drive from Cairns and a six-and-a-half-hour drive from Townsville.

Play
The gorge can only be visited on guided tours. All SUP, helicopter and walking and boat tours are organised by Cobbold Gorge Village. See cobboldgorge.com.au

Stay
Cobbold Gorge Village has camping sites, as well as basic motel-style units and elevated huts.

More
queensland.com

The writer travelled courtesy of Tourism & Events Queensland.