Georgetown Qld / Cobbald Gorge 1 August 2017

Actually, the less said about Georgetown the better...

We only stayed here so that we could do a tour of Cobbald Gorge, which is about 90km south of Georgetown. The roads are reported to be 'bad', so we stayed in Georgetown and drove down to Forsayth to meet the tour bus that would take us to The Gorge.

Our first surprise is that the 'bad' road down to Forsayth is a proper bitumen road except for the 12km bit in the middle, which they are working on as we speak. Our next surprise was how nice and clean and friendly Forsayth looked after the down-at-heel appearance of Georgetown. We had a cup of tea while waiting for the Cobbald Gorge tour guide to come back to his bus. He duly arrived and we left right on the dot of 10am for the 45km grind over some fairly ordinary dirt road to Robinhood Station (no didn't make that up) which is where the Gorge is located.

We arrived at just before11am and took a dip in the pool

Lunch was at 12.

The tour started at 130......

Now apart from the absolutely lovely pool in which we swam up until lunch time, there is not an awful lot to do or see at the Resort. Lunch was an uninspiring wrap of salad and corned beef, or pork, or chicken. I had one of each to be sure, even though ignored the actual wrap of #2 and 3. Lunch over at 1215. Tour an hour and a quarter away. We walked the 100m to the caravan park, we walked back to the pool. We walked the 200m to the rest of the cabins, and back to the pool. We sat on our backsides until called to board the same bus that we had come in. A 10 minute ride and there we were: at the Gorge itself. Did we board the custom built narrow tinnies and do the tour? No sir. We marched up the hill and, after being told about numerous native bushes, which is obligatory on these tours, we were then regaled with the story of poor old Jimmy Corbett who was 'murdered by the blacks' or so they said on the official paperwork back in 1871. They have a researcher working out who he was and his life story for further generations of tourists. It was also of interest that this was on the side of the original road from Charters Towers to Georgetown, circa 1840, which still appears to be used by 4x4 fans

John Corbettt, 30 May 1971 RIP

We then marched back to the point where we had left some souls to rest, left a few more and marched to the top of the Gorge to get some snaps. Now these people are paranoid about Public Liabilty, and rightly so, so a view and snap of the Gorge down below was done with the restriction of being 2m from the edge etc etc while the guides fussed about.

Cobbald Gorge Qld, Top View 

Cobbald Gorge Qld, Top View

Quick smart we were marched right back down to the boats, picking up stragglers and couldn't-be-bothereds on the way back. There are three boats, each just wide enough to move up the narrow gorge, but big enough for 10 pax and crew. Perhaps I am jaded, having seen a few gorges in the last few years, so I'm not going to wax lyrical about this one. It was nice, It was interesting, It was great to have seen it. Here are some snaps

Cobbald Gorge Qld, Bottom view

Add caption

Cobbald Gorge Qld, Bottom view 

Cobbald Gorge Qld, Bottom view

and then back to the busses, a few minutes back to the Resort and before you know it we are bouncing and bashing our way back to Forsayth and our drive back home to Georgetown.

If, and that's a pretty big if, we went there again, I would take the van to Forsayth and then drive ourselves in, even if it took 2 hours, take the tour, have a swim and then drive out. And it would still be less painful than all that sitting around.