I have had the camping bug for many a year and to me, ther are way too many campers utilizing the same old areas and placing great pressure on these , mostly , wonderful places.

In particular I am directing this at Inskip Point and Fraser Island.

I think that in the not to distant future, we'll be seeing restrictions placed at these places and maybe even go to a Ballot system for Fraser, similar to the one running at Rottnest Island off WA.

And how many people can they fit into the Inskip Point grounds over Easter ?  The place is packed like sardines.  I know that the spot is great and close to Brissie, but really, have you been there in season ?

Cheers  Phill

Phill, sounds to me like you need a new camping location
A couple of years ago I was getting over a busted leg so before we went out west to work thought we would have a couple of weeks enjoying the coast.
Started at Iluka and by the time we had reached Kingscliff any sort of coastal enjoyment had well and truly worn off.
The real sad part is that so many of those top fishing spots of 35yrs. ago made accessible by the sand miners are now NP's and held to be of pristine significance. What are held to be naturally occurring lake and swamp systems behind dune formations are simply remnants of miners dredging ponds.
I showed a ranger at Station creek a massive tangle of old wire rope and asked how it got there if the area had never been cleared or worked. He wanted to know how I knew it was there, I shook my head and walked away
mikel ???

Phil

You are right about that.  They get about 4000 people at Inskip over Easter and Christmas.  The problem is that the facilities are very poor and not suitable.

There is still no water.

EPA are talking about halving that amount of people.  I think more planning and facilities would help.


Derek

Yep, the facilities are very poor indeed.

I really believe, ANY camping ground, no matter where they are, if managed properly, can sustain a large influx of people during the school holiday seasons.

If it is a budgetory ( is that a word ? ) effect that is not allowing the facilities and management to be effective and efficient, then surely a user pay cost increase is acceptable.  At the moment, the $4.00 per person per night in National Parks, is certainly great for the budget minded campers, but it may well be this cost increases to provide the necessary funds to manage the grounds in a manner that will allow all who use now, to do so in the future.  

Take Inskip Point for instance, if said cost were to increase by 50%, and over the 4000 campers staying there for 4 days over Easter, that'd be a $32,000 windfall for the better facilities.  32 grand buys a lot of toilet !    And that is just over Easter.

It also may have another effect, of pushing people away to other areas, ie:  do not have good facilities and only the hardy will stay, making the non-hardy campers seek better facilities and areas to try.

Food for thought !

Cheers  Phill

Phil, foregive me, but the last figures I have on Australia's population is in the neighborhood of 19 million, whereas we're up over 30 mil.

In the more populous provinces, i.e, Ontario, getting a reservation made costs $ and some of the provincial park policies are rather controversial.

But in the province where I live, Newfoundland and Labrador, our population is around 500,000 and I can continue to enjoy boondocking.

I admit I would not go to Fraser Island at Easter, but in a very off season.  & maybe by the time I get to Oz, it will be too popular for me to go there at all.  Reality check :(

:)

By all means Kopit, come on over and enjoy our wonderful country.  You are doing the right thing by " surfing " the net and gleaning information prior to a trip.

I have had the good fortune to chat with some of your countrymen, and must say your part of the world sounds great.

How about posting up some websites of some of the parks etc, you visit over there ?  Or better still, some of your own pics ?

I will do the same ( of Fraser  ) and notify you when I do.

Yes, I am sure some decisions made by people that do not use said parks etc, will be controversial and unpopular with some people, but at the end of the day, we do have to have some sort of management.  Should that management get it wrong ( we are only human after all ), then we can try to fix it.  What works today, may not work in 10 years time.

Cheers   Phill

Phil, I was thinking of whether the site might take my sig. maps.  These were created by a software engineer specifically for rv.net.  They are U.S. & Canada, but I understand he is working on one for Mexico.  I know he's had requests for Europe, Oz and NZ.

Pictures.  I'd probably need help.  What's the image icon?

Links to others albums:  http://rattletruck.phanfare.com/  These are photos by Ron aka Clattertruck at rv.net, a retired photographer.

http://groups.msn.com/Diann7/shoebox.msnw & by Diann of RobandDi at rv.net.

I have links to others, but those will do for a starter.    Ok, a bit of geography.  I've used Environment Canada's http://weatheroffice.ec.gc.ca/canada_e.html  outline maps before and they worked with your countryman, Poddy Dodger, who is a member here.  This is the province where  I reside  http://weatheroffice.ec.gc.ca/forecast/canada/index_e.html?id=NF    

I think I said that we have around 500,000 population.  Of that, just 30,000 live in Labrador.  

(I've been picking PD's brains for about 2 years and got here via him).

:)

I had to ask to get reminded of this.  This person doesn't join D.O. forums, he just uses them:

http://coldjosh.nstemp.com/index.html/my_personal_cookbook.htm#A%20Taste%20of%20Jim's%20Roadside%20Red

:)

thats ok phill at inskip their going to be putting in bollards to limit camp spots that way its first in best dressed so to speak. its a shame it had to come to this. :(

I feel that some people get there weeks before Easter which makes it hard for the every day person to leave work and head up to Inskip

Regards
Kingwilly

G'Day Guys my first post so go easy on me eh ...  ;)

We used to go to Inskip (yep I'm another Qlder) years ago when it was still a sandy dirt road from Rainbow. That was with girlfriend 8 who turned into wife 1 who later, with some help from me, produced kids 1 and 2.  8-)

During girlfriend 8 and the early stages of wife 1 we spent a lot of time up at inskip, no dunnys or showers let alone power ... and we loved it. Fortunately for us not alot of others thought the same, good their loss    :)

When kid 1, and especially kid 2 only 12 months later arrived, raw camping  was considered not the same as before, where a tandem trailer was almost required to carry all in sundry this small family now needed....apparently.   :-?

Now years later, Kids 1 and 2 who are now young adults 1 and 2, wife 1 and I now with 4x4 1, have resumed camping like the good ol days. I must admit we did successfully try, when kids grew a little, caravan park style camping, but when they grew into  teenager's 1 and 2 it did rather fall from being 'cool' dad.  :-/

Now as we, Wife 1 and I, have got a little older we rather like a fraction more comfort, so camping now consists of a taking our Jayco camper. Earlier last year we revisited Inskip some 20 years since our last camp out there. Bitumen roads toilets showers and heaps more people camped on top of one another.

The best way I've found to get a bit of piece and quiet is camp mid week or off season. Fortunately we  are self sufficent not needing any ammenities to be provided for us and not restricted to camp or holiday during any 'silly season'. Ahh the joys of shift working. We camp further up the beach where other people drive right on by to camp down near the Fraser barge's. Yes more people than 20 years ago, but certainly a lot less than cramming in down further and it's still nice to have a 'few' neighbours.  ;)



Cheers,
Tony   8-)

Hi Tony

Welcome and good to see you here.


Derek

Thanks Derek,

Just gotta make more time for camping now we have the little Jayco. It certainly makes it easier, just hook her on and off we go.

Cheers,
Tony   8-)

What a sad and sorry tale, however these days it is becoming more and more common, not only for you folks over there in the East, but we over here in W.A. also suffer the same problem would you believe with all the barely populated land available through out our state ?

Our problem is population increase, coupled with everyone and their dog all wishing to partake of the great outdoors, but it's gotta be no more then a couple of hours away from home.

The National Parks people are the biggest joke I've ever come across, they call themselves Conservation and management, DUH, when what we see everyday falls far short of any sort of management.

Areas that used to cater for many hundreds of campers are being closed on a daily basis and very poor excuses being given, areas that have catered for over 100 years for recreational camping and water activeties are being closed under the guise of water conservation ect, ect.

All the people who used to go to such sites are all now being directed to the ONE site, and the Management wonders why there is an overcrowding problem on long weekends.  ::) Boggles the mind and these are supposed to be smart people, God help us if they get any smarter.

To watch these clowns perform their duties is real entertainment.
For example at one location the rangers of old installed steps cut from tree trunks down the paths leading to the river, these steps fulfilled more then one task, they prevented rain run off from eroding the ground as well as providing safe surfaces to walk upon, our clever rangers decided to remove said steps under the pretext of insurance claims via liability, and now the soil is being washed away and silting up the river as well as making the pathways extremely dangerous, the erosion damage has to be seen to be believed, yet it doesn't bother the rangers on bit.

I strongly suspect the real issue was the cost of replacing said logs as they were coming close to their used by date and needed replacement as there is no longer the abundance of large trees to cut said steps from, it'd be quiet expensive to utilise that resource.

It's too bad the clever rangers couldn't use the brains God gave them, and use concrete retaining sections in place of timber, and the bonus being they'd last forever.

Ah well, I guess we can always go further and further out away from the rat race altogether, but then, what with working 12 hour days 6 days a week that's becoming impossible too.
Not to mention the cost nowadays of fuel as well.

Hmmm, looks like anyone in the recreations supply business would do well to examine their future prospects in said business.  ;)

I sure agree with your gripes about our National Parks. Here in NSW many parks have self registration "Honesty Boxes" and the fees are roughly the same for all parks. $7.00 per person camping fee plus $10.00 entry fee; that's $24 per night for a couple. For this you get very little, sometimes long drop toilets and fire places, no water, don't collect firewood and take your rubbish with you and if you don't pay and get caught big fines.
I wrote to the NPWS a while ago and had a bitch about the fees and argued that privately owned caravan parks do it better for less. The NPWS explained their fees were maintenance fees for all parks including the remote ones where no fees applied so like it or go elsewhere !

pd

Similar story in parts of Barrington guys,
Most of the tracks I use were cut in by hand by the gold miners carting thier loot from Stuarts Brook over the top of Mt Royal & down into Singleton to cash it, these tracks had never had a blade passed over them (100 yrs+) which made great riding & 4WDing, then the forestry decided they would "fix" them!!
So after being cut in by a blade they erroded badly,
now remember these tracks were no more than two wheel tracks meandering through the bush with almost no environmental impact at all.
So how do they "fix" them again, they go in with the dozers again & push down masses of trees, yes live trees & build big mounds to close the tracks which have been there for over a century which they stuffed in the first place!!!
then they do the same to most of the camping areas on the river bank.......in a couple of hours they did a hundred times more damage than had been done in over a century.

That was ten years or so ago, thankfully the focus has shifted to other areas since then & most of the tracks have been re-opened by those loyal to the area but some are gone for good, and what happens when we get big fires up there.....no access means no fire fighting, or when a bush walker falls & breaks a leg or something.

As you said Itchyvet, I would hate to see these "brains" get any smarter!

Ok Iv'e had my btch now.........Mick.