Hi Tony

Welcome and good to see you here.


Derek

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. 

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.