DREAMTIME GORGE

The sun set just as our ten-seater plane connected with the grass runway. George, the pilot, breathed a sigh of relief, and so did we – it had been touch and go to get to Bandanna airstrip, a four-hour flight from Mackay in north Queensland, before dark.

There were no lights on the strip of course, but the staff at the nearby Oasis Lodge assured us they had come down earlier and 'shooed the cows off '. Great!

This lodge guards the entrance to southern central Queensland's Carnarvon Gorge, an 11km gash through ancient sandstone. To the Aboriginal people it was a significant spiritual site and they honoured it with reverence, decorating it with paintings to record their mythology. Today their stencilled handprints are some of the best-preserved examples of this ancient and primitive form of self-expression.

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This article continues with details of this remote and beautifula area and  includes information on accommodation provided, local food and cuisine, things to do and see.

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(finishes…)

At the gorge, you can be as active as you wish –  abseil, rock climb, bike or hike, then bush-dance the night away – or you can enjoy a sunny doze in a settler's chair on a cabin verandah, wander through the bush, or take a quiet picnic to the creek and watch for platypus.

And if you wake to a thump on the cabin's canvas roof in the night, don't worry. It's probably just a possum patrolling the grounds.

 

©Sally Hammond 2006

Picture Credits: ©Gordon Hammond 2006

(Sally and Gordon Hammond travelled as guests of Queensland Tourism)

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