Carnarvon Gorge is located in the Southern Brigalow Belt bioregion in Central Queensland (Australia), 593 km northwest of Brisbane. Primarily created by water erosion, Carnarvon Gorge is around 30 kilometres long, located in Carnarvon National Park, and six hundred metres deep at the mouth. It is the most visited feature within Carnarvon National Park due to the diversity of experiences it contains and the ease with which it can be accessed. The closest towns are Injune and Rolleston.
In 2009 as part of the Q150 celebrations, the Carnarvon Gorge was announced as one of the Q150 Icons of Queensland for its role as a "Natural attraction".
History
Some western researchers have suggested that Aboriginal people did not live in the gorge permanently, due to defensive concerns and lack of food resources, whilst others suggest that permanent occupation was not allowed due to the gorge being considered sacred. The dreamtime stories tell a tale of the Rainbow Serpent which made the gorges, and which resides in their permanent waterholes to this day.
Ludwig Leichhardt was the first European explorer to pass nearby and make note of the ranges, during his expedition to Port Essington in 1844. Two years later, Thomas Mitchell passed to the west of Carnarvon Gorge. It was Mitchell who named the Carnarvon Range, possibly after Henry Herbert, 3rd Earl of Carnarvon. The reports of pastureland and good water carried back to the colonies brought settlers to the area, and began a period of bloody conflict between settlers and Aboriginals.
By the late 1870s the newcomers had prevailed. Local Aboriginals sought refuge on properties run by those sympathetic to their plight. Subsequent years would see many forcibly removed from their homelands and transferred to government and church run reserves and missions. The latter process of removal is considered by some to have been, culturally, more destructive than the direct conflict that preceded it.
The farming of cattle and growing of crops remains a vibrant industry around Carnarvon Gorge but, since 1932 when it was gazetted as a National Park, such activities have no longer been allowed in the gorge itself. In 1974, the Ka Ka Mundi area which had been heavily grazed for about a century, also became part of the park. In place of the grazing of cattle, a tourism industry has grown. Over 70,000 visitors per annum make the trek to Carnarvon Gorge.
Features
Within the lower ten kilometres of the Gorge, visitors can encounter a variety of cultural and natural values that, elsewhere in the region, would require considerable travel to experience; significant Indigenous cultural sites and rock art sites, narrow sandstone canyons, extensive sandstone cliff lines, basalt-capped tablelands and mountain ranges, and relict rainforest vegetation.
Tracks, trails, and sites
There is a ten kilometre (10 km) track leading into Carnarvon Gorge, with diversions into specific sites such as the Art Gallery, Big Bend, Wards Canyon, Cathedral Cave, the Amphitheatre and the Moss Garden. In the mouth of Carnarvon Gorge, there are another five sites to visit; Boolimba Bluff, the Nature Trail, the Rockpool, Mickey Creek Gorge and Baloon Cave (closed due to bushfire damage in December, 2018). Several remote tracks exist for experienced walkers; the Ranch, the Devil's Signpost, and Battleship Spur.
Rocks and landscapes
Situated within the Central Queensland Sandstone Belt, and separating the Consuelo Tableland and the Great Dividing Range, Carnarvon Gorge's landscapes have largely been shaped by water erosion. Over the last twenty seven million years Carnarvon Creek, which winds for over , has carved down through six hundred metres of stone, exposing rocks from three significant phases of Queensland's geological history including two sedimentary basins, the Bowen and the Surat, and the Buckland Volcanic Province. The youngest rocks in the area are the igneous basalt rocks of the Buckland volcanic Province which were laid down between 35-27 million years ago to depths of up to 300 metres. The basalt layer is present on top of the high country either side of the Gorge where it protects the landscape from erosion and generates significantly different soils to those derived from the lower sedimentary rocks. Boulders eroded from the basalt layer dominate the Gorge's waterways due to their ability to resist water erosion better than the sedimentary rocks they once overlaid.