Awesome Aussie Life: Lawn Hill here we come

Day 3 (Sunday 5th April 2015)

Woke early to have some brekky and pack up before the Undara caves tour. The tour bus took us into the national park again, to a section where several caves are accessible. After a short walk from the car park, we went down into the area which is like one long ancient lava flow that has formed tunnels, collapsed in some sections allowing rainforest-like growth to sprout up in between the cave sections.

Not sure what I was expecting but there were no stalactites or stalagmites, just big cavernous tubes of rock. Much of the tunnel is segmented, seemingly made up of large pieces of rock stuck together. Evident everywhere are the pieces that have fallen down over the years and now rest on the ground. Our tour guide assured us that none have fallen recently and that various movement checks are in place to hopefully alert them to any instability. Nevertheless it was still interesting and worth the visit.

The walk to the caves

Down into the tunnels

A section of the tunnel


Inside one of the caves

Following the tour, we were on our way again - this time turning off the Gulf Development road to go through Einsleigh and Forsayth, before making our way to Cobbold Gorge. We stopped briefly at Einsleigh to look at the Copperfield Gorge. A short walk from the carpark across a vast expanse of rock before looking down upon a small gorge area which was full of people swimming. There was a rodeo on that weekend which explained the crankiness of 2 police officers that Brett almost had a run in with. Apparently we were not 'in the bush' enough for public urination to be considered acceptable. Moving on we pulled into the Forsayth pub for some lunch. Nice place which looked like it had been recently renovated - although the pool table didn't work and took our $2.

Walking to copperfield gorge

Copperfield gorge

About 40kms south of Forsayth, Cobbold Gorge was not somewhere I'd heard of before I started preparing for this trip. The road in was a bit rough and very dusty but no more so than much of the road after we left Undara. The Gulf Development road still has large sections of dirt road to traverse. Arriving early afternoon, Cobbold Gorge is like an oasis in an otherwise rugged part of the country. A cattle property upon which they discovered this magnificent gorge. Driving up to the office, we past the newish 'infinity' pool overlooking a large dam and bar/restaurant area. Everyone was immediately impressed. Similar to Undara, you have to book & pay to do a tour of the gorge, you can't just go in on your own. This was booked for the following morning.

We set up camp (again the campsite was full as it was Easter Sunday) and immediately made use of that fantastic pool. They have a 'swim up bar' too so we had a couple of beers, served in a plastic cup but only $5 each so who cares. The dam has a couple of canoes for free guest use so we had a paddle around in these too. The amenities were excellent - the prefab demountable type with a number of ensuites (toilet & shower combined). Despite the number of campers, everyone was fairly well behaved and we had another quiet night.

Our campsite at Cobbold

The pool and dam in background

Relaxing in the Cobbold bar

Day 4 (Monday 6th April 2015)

By 9am it was like a mass-exodus as about 90% of campers packed up and headed presumably back to their respective homes as the end of the easter long weekend had arrived. We did a sort of half pack up but didn't rush as we were booked to do the tour at 10am.

The tour bus, a large 4x4 type, took us through some rough terrain and across the wide, currently dry, expanse of the Robertson River before stopping near the gorge. First we went for a 'bush walk' with Stephen our guide, who very enthusiastically pointed out the bush tucker, flora & fauna, geology & historical aspects of the area. We learnt about the Leichhardt breadfruit tree and the soap bush as well as many more. There was a rocky outcrop where evidence of past aboriginal use could be seen. There was the gravesite of John Corbett, an early pioneer from the late 1800's, who had died back in the days when this area was considered the 'highway' to Darwin and was nothing more than an overgrown track by todays standards. Reportedly murdered by aborigines but more likely to have been the gold hungry publican or associate. We walked up to the escarpment which overlooks the gorge, and then finally we boarded the purpose built boats which are just wide enough to traverse the narrow gorge. Spectacular! Well worth 3 hours of our time. There was also a filmcrew there for the travel show 'Getaway' so expect Cobbold will be covered on their show sometime in the future (no, we didn't get our mugs in any of the filming).

We got back to camp around 1pm, finished packing up and had some lunch at the Cobbold bar before heading off to our next destination. When we set off, we didn't really have a definate idea of where to aim for, but by the time we reached Croydon we were buggered and decided to stop here. Glad we did because it was a pleasant little caravan park. Not many other travellers so we camped by the camp kitchen and the kids enjoyed some television for a while. There was a big pool and the area was shady with lots of green grass (a nice change from the fairly barren dirt camp grounds at Undara & Cobbold).