Everyone was up relatively early packing up to drive to Cobbold Gorge today – approximately 460kms – the last 70k was back on the dirt…..

At Normanton Gordie wanted to check out the Gulflander train that was parked in town when we arrived – unfortunately it had left…

As we were driving along the road out of Normanton we saw the Gulflander travelling close to the road and so we drove ahead, stopped and got some great photos – Gordie was so excited!! The Gulflander is a service that runs between Normanton and Croydon – very quaint train.

The road between Normanton and Georgetown was sealed the whole way but quite a few sections were single lane meaning pulling over into the dirt to allow road trains to pass…..

The landscape initially was dry savannah but the further from Normanton we went the greener the landscape became…. we even saw mango plantations despite the fact that many of the rivers still appeared dry.

We stopped at Georgetown to make lunch and then continued out to Cobbold Gorge along the dirt road –

….several road trains passed us as the area has many stations so cattle are transported out by the large cattle trucks 3-4 car road trains. There is also a lot of mining in the area and so road trains carrying minerals and ore are also frequent.

The Wells were travelling blissfully unaware that Rosie had left the water pump and power on in the van after lunch and their water was pumping out via the kitchen sink tap which swung on while on the dirt road.

We pulled in to Cobbold Gorge to check in and Dave waited in the car – while sitting there an old couple came upand asked him did he know he had water dripping out the back of the van…poor Dave had dejavu – he immediately thought that Macgyver’s repair had failed…but when he went out to inspect he found it was dripping out the greywater pipe…..and found that the kitchen tap was running as was the pump…and now they had lost a tank of water….again!!

Branch missed this instalment of the Well’s Watergate affair as he was investigating a mysterious report of a “poonami” in an unnamed Snowy River van which involved a leaky toilet cassette, dump point and flush out flooding the van needing all beachtowels to soak it up…..when, where and how did this happen??? All will be revealed I am sure when Branch’s full investigation is complete.

Cobbold Gorge Resort was beautifully set up with an infinity pool, lagoon with canoes, open air bar and restaurant and large sites.

We set up camp and booked our gorge tours for tomorrow afternoon as all morning tour were full. The campsites were all pebbles, quartz and various mineral rocks sourced from the local area – a great change from red dirt/ dust we have been used to!