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.