4WD
Touring the Australian Outback.
HomeThe 2003 Australian Outback trip.
It's our country, Camp FREE, dont pay any FEE!
This is an unusual view of outback touring, like our comments on touring in
Europe and the USA by campervan, this is a warts and all look at the Australian
countryside, with politically very incorrect comments on the outback economy,
roads, towns, culture and people. Some examples of each of the above we like
and others we tell you why we don't.
I advocate the right to camp FREE in the Australian bush, along roads, in roadside rest areas, in State Forests, and in National Parks. I urge all travellers to resist restrictions on your freedom to camp overnight in roadside rest areas and resist paying fees for camping in National Parks. Rangers in parks now spend much of their time collecting fees instead of doing any useful work. Do away with fees and sack most of the rangers and the parks would cost less to operate, and be free to the public. National Parks are public property, yours and mine, and the public should not have to pay to enter or camp in their own property. "The Government" does not own National Parks, we do.
I have been interested in camping and touring "the bush" since I was a teenager and would go for a two week tour into Victoria's Alpine areas with my friends in our cars, and later 4WD's as we got older and were able to afford them. In those days, the 1960's, there were relatively few National parks, and those that existed were centered around notable ecological or geological or geographic features that were recognized for a genuine quality of natural beauty. Much of the Victorian Alps was "Crown Land" and was managed for timber production by the Forests Commission, when government departments still called themselves what they were in fact, instead of adopting pseudo commercial corporate titles of staggeringly unimaginative originality along the lines of Crapology Australia, or Bullshit Victoria.
I was interested in both conservation and 4WD access to the bush, and when, attempts were made in 1972 to establish a huge Alpine National Park in Victoria, with the publication of a book entitled "The Alps at the Crossroads, by Dick Johnson, on terms which would have seen highly restrictive access management practices introduced, that would have excluded most forms of recreational access except wilderness based activities, such as bush walking, I single handedly started leafleting campaign to warn 4WD owners of the danger to their forest road access to the bush. Hundreds of leaflets were distributed by my friends and I to every 4WD vehicle we saw on the road or parked anywhere. City based 4WD's were at that time often really used for 4WD bush access by their owners, and seldom were just a fashion statement as they have now become. So many of the then relatively small numbers of 4WD owners were persons with some interest in access to the bush, and were concerned by the restrictive access proposals being lobbied for by Johnson and other bushwalking and "wilderness" groups.
4WD Club members took notice of my leaflets, I was invited to address most of the 4WD clubs around Melbourne in 1973/4 and my alerting them to the danger resulted in the formation of the Victorian Association of 4WD Clubs, under the chairmanship of Colin Dunn of the Toyota Landcruiser Club of Victoria, with myself as an independent consultant to the association to lobby the government for continued public access to the forest road network.
I joined the Alpine Society, one of the groups lobbying for restrictions on access and massive "wilderness" areas, and asked such a lot of difficult questions of the then Minister of Conservation Mr. Borthwick, when he came to address their meeting, that I was invited to a personal meting with the Minister at his offices the next week, to put counter proposals to the government. By this time he knew who I was, as the result of numerous letters sent to him as the result of my vehicle leafleting campaign, some of which had enclosed my leaflets. Balanced land use, catering to as wide a spectrum of recreational uses as possible, and continued public access to as wide a selection of forest roads as possible, modern track management practices, such as drainage diversion humps, and seasonal closures to minimize track rutting from inappropriate winter use, are proposals which you still see as core principals of management in the Victorian Alpine National Park.
I promoted an alliance with associations of fisherman, rock hounds, hunters, forest industries groups, and anyone else we could think of that would be adversely affected by restrictive access and track closures. It worked, the Minister received so many letters about the matter that he commented to me at our meeting, that he had never received so much correspondence from the public on any conservation matter in his entire experience. He became an eager listener to what I had to tell him. A rare example of genuine peoples democracy at work. Apathy is the enemy of democracy, and the ally of extremism in all things.
Why was all this necessary? Because there were dedicated extremists within the conservation and bushwalking movements, who saw any form of vehicle based recreation as an affront to their concept of enjoyment of the bush, "the wilderness experience", a kind of pseudo religious dogma that showed as much tolerance of other forms of recreational use of public land as the Holy Inquisition had towards witches! They wanted it ALL locked up to become a huge wilderness nut's paradise, with everyone else excluded by restrictive management practices and massive track closures. They became so alarmed by my leaflets that Victorian Federation of Walking Clubs engaged solicitors to write to me threatening to sue me for defamation for referring to unnamed persons whom I referred to only as "extremist leaders of the Bushwalkers movement". Naturally as no identifiable person was defamed in any way in my leaflets the threat was an entirely hollow bullying tactic, and I treated it as such.
I was appointed as a delegate of the Victorian Association of 4WD Clubs to the Victorian National Parks Association, the other side of the story was put forward, and the Victorian Land Conservation Council was formed by the Victorian Government, to make recommendations to the Government on the use of all public land in Victoria. My friends and I, along with all the 4WD Clubs and the 4WD Association would make detailed submissions to each area study conducted by the council. I was invited to personal consultations by LCC research officers conducting the various area studies, and can claim some influence in achieving the reasonably balances recommendations on public land use which resulted.
In 1976 my work as an Engineer took me to Papua New Guinea and I took no further part in the battle for balanced recreational land use of public lands, but although many skirmishes remained to be fought, the war had been won. No one extremist point of view would dominate the decision making process on the use of public lands and access to the forest road network anywhere in Australia, as other states followed the Victorian model and the 4WD movement was formed nationally based on the Victorian Association of 4WD Clubs, which had itself resulted from my decision to do something and start my leafleting campaign to alert other 4WD owners to the danger to their interests.
Eventually the Alpine National Park was created, but it was considerably smaller and the access conditions for 4WD and other forms of recreation were far more reasonable than those originally sought by the "lock it up loonies". However in reality nothing had changed for the better, in fact in my opinion the area was far better managed before by the Victorian Forests Commission and the Lands Department, as either State Forest or uncommitted crown land. The names had been changed and the suburban armchair conservationists received their fix of warm inner glow. While they have been glowing inwardly the vast forests of noxious weeds began to grow that now infest many parts of the "park", such as along the Snowy River, feral animals began to multiply uncontrolled, and excessive fuel began to accumulate throughout the bushland, setting the scene for some of the recent (2002) massive bushfires. What economic value that had been extracted from the area was lost as forestry, cattlemen on the high plains and the odd one or two mines were gradually banished. To what real benefit, none whatsoever. While 4WD access remained fairly open to most areas, some tracks were closed permanently, some seasonally, and many allowed to deteriorate and overgrow.
So who benefits from having the area "managed" for want of a better term by the National Parks doctrinaire greenies with their theoretical conservation agenda? Not "the environment", there are more feral animals, noxious weeds and hot burn fires than ever. Not the taxpayer as the once productive area has now become a fiscal black hole. Not the majority of recreational users who have to varying degrees been more regulated or excluded, and face an ongoing creeping regulatory guerilla war with the greenie doctrinaire bureaucrats that infest National Parks administrations like cockroaches. The area was better managed in a sustainable manner before it was made a "park". Timber production when wisely managed is a sustainable industry, and logging from relatively small areas produced less temporary aesthetic visual scarring than the massive bushfires that have occurred due to twenty years of uncontrolled fuel build up.
If there was a real benefit to the environment by having it "managed" as a National Park, as opposed to a real threat arising from the way it was managed before, I would support it, but there just isn't. In fact the Forests Commission did a far better job of managing the area before 1980 by permitting closely controlled logging, limited cattle grazing on the high plains, very isolated mining, and generally very lightly restricted recreational access for all. Residents of the small towns now surrounded by the National Park (Aberfeldy) have joined in condemnation of the management practices of the National Parks which have resulted in the huge fires, and allegedly incompetent fire control attempts.
The benefits are merely a political illusion. The armchair conservationists, among them many little old ladies in the Victorian National Parks Association, who have never been further into the bush than Ferntree Gully National Park, and whose knowledge of conservation and environmental issues consists of having once cuddled a captive Koala at the Sir Colin McKenzie sanctuary at Healsville on a Sunday school outing in 1953, sit glowing inwardly in their rocking chairs, believing that all is right with the world, and that "the environment" has been saved, much as souls are said to be saved by belief in Jesus. Meanwhile the weeds are growing, the ferals breeding and the fuel accumulating for the next conflagration on a scale to rival the fires of Hell.
All is not well in Paradise, and the misguided management policies of National Parks are to blame. Blameworthy too are the politicians who create this potential environmental mayhem by pandering to the environmental cretins who believe that the best way to manage the environment is to lock it all up and do nothing. The agenda behind this is the extremist wilderness nut doctrine that selfishly wants it all for themselves, their way. Not a vehicle shall be heard in the bush, not a track shall be seen within four miles, not a plane shall be heard overhead, not a cow shall graze, not a shot shall be fired, not a hole shall be dug, not a tree shall be felled. Only the walker shall walk. Too bloody bad about the ferals, weeds and fires. It would be poetic justice if those who are responsible for this environmental management madness were to all be in there having a collective wilderness orgasm the next time it all goes up in flames.
The same fight goes on, in other states and on a continuous basis. Many of the dedicated wilderness extremists make a career out of their obsession and find employment in the various state national parks or conservation departments. Hence there is continuous pressure coming from these sources for creeping restrictions on public access. This requires a constant political battle by the majority of interest groups who want to continue to have and share access to the public lands to avoid the dictatorship of the extremist greenies. The extremist greenies are not true conservationists at all, for their motivation is primarily a selfish desire to preserve huge areas for their particular form of recreation exclusively. Bushwalkers generally do not share such extremist viewpoints, but neither do they oppose their extremist brethren, because the normal sane bushwalker has nothing to loose, they will not be denied access. Because the extremists gravitate to positions of power in the bushwalking movement, often the bushwalking clubs and their associated political lobby groups are found to be supporting the pressure for access restrictions coming from their like minded brethren working for the state land management authorities. Now it is a piecemeal effort to tighten this restriction or close that track, impose another seasonal track closure, or require a special permit.
The sort of conservation I support is typified by the Landcare movement, environmentally sustainable farming, organic growing with minimal use of harmful artificial fertilizers and poisonous agricultural chemicals, sustainable forestry, efficient use of water resources, the return to proper environmental flows in the Murry Darling river systems, and the removal of the environmentally devastating levee banks which prevent the necessary periodical flooding of areas adjacent to Australia's inland rivers. Living within our means in use of limited water resources, the overuse of which has resulted in soil salination, erosion and widespread environmental destruction. I support the farming of native animals, the promotion of Kangaroo meat consumption, and Emu meat consumption. The efficient harvesting of feral animals, goats and pigs, for game meat export and the development of the huge potential markets in Europe and Asia for this resource. The closure of stupidly wasteful industries such as cotton growing in the driest continent on earth, only economically viable because the true cost of the huge amount of water used is not charged against the end product. Revegetation, tree planting programs. The establishment of clear limits on Australia's population growth recognizing our limited water supply.
In short I support REAL conservation, the taking of the intelligent long term options to use our natural resources in ways compatible with our unique Australian eco systems. I am a real conservationist, not a political opportunist. I condemn the short sighted political management of our country which, even dealing with the eternal issues of the environment, only looks at the bottom line of the current accounting period. I want to encourage the real conservation and sustainable management of all of our country, and more make believe "Clayton's" National Parks on decrepit cattle stations in the middle of nowhere are not part of an intelligent sustainable development plan. They are nothing more than a diversionary political tactic to make the woolly headed urban voter, who has a vogue notion that conservation is a good thing, feel that something is being done. In short just another cynical politically opportunistic conjuring trick to fool the masses of sheeple into quietly ignorant subservience to their economic masters.
Eternal vigilance is not only the price of liberty, but also of continued access to the bush track network, and extremist points of view are the enemy of both liberty and access.
In the 1960's bush camping was always free and unrestricted on "Crown Land" and was viewed as a right of the people. No doubt my love of free camping, and boondocking in the USA and on our European campervan tour in 2000, derives from my youthful experiences of FREE camping in the Victorian Alps. There are from time to time attempts to restrict roadside overnight camping, such as the West Australian attempt of several years ago to outlaw roadside camping within 50Kms of a commercial caravan park,(since abandoned) and the recent Queensland prohibition on overnight stops at about 26 Main Roads rest areas. Both blatantly pandering to the lobbying of commercial interests of caravan park owners. Many owners of self contained touring vehicles, campervans and caravans rightly claim that they have no need of caravan park facilities when travelling, and should not be forced to pay for what they neither need nor want, to satisfy the commercial interests of often decidedly second rate caravan parks. What the caravan park owners should be doing is working on ways to upgrade their attractiveness and lower costs, and not trying to lobby the government into passing regulations to force customers into their overpriced unattractive dumps.
The responsible Queensland minister responding on ABC radio 612 4QR to criticism if the prohibition on overnight stops in some highway rest areas, stated that the government should not be in competition with caravan parks by providing free overnight camping at roadside rest areas. I suggest Minister that neither should you be effectively subsidizing them by forcing reluctant customers to use and pay for facilities they don't want or need.
Everyone affected should write to the Queensland Minister for Transport to express their disapproval.
In 1976 my wife and I completed a 4WD tour from Melbourne to Darwin, via Adelaide, the Oodanaddata Track, Coober Peady, Ayer's Rock, King's Canyon, Alice Springs. We returned via the Gulf country to Normanton thence across to Cairns and down the east coast. This was a time when relatively few people undertook such 4WD trips and "tourist facilities" were mercifully much less developed and promoted.
Along the Oodnadatta Track, near Maree, vast expanses of flat almost featureless country, interspersed with a few points of interest such as the mound springs, hundreds of kilometers from here. The road is in deplorable condition. The surface badly corrugated and eroded to expose the rough foundation layers in many sections. It is worse to drive on now than it was in 1976, when it was just a dirt track. Admittedly it would now not get so muddy during the infrequent rains, but driving on these roads is no longer a pleasurable experience. Rather than the half hearted upgrade that has resulted in this situation, perhaps it would have been better left as a dirt track.
Thirty years ago it was much easier to identify the in reality few really worthwhile features to include in ones outback itinerary, before the information overload created by every town and half derelict sheep station promoting itself as a tourist Mecca confused the situation. Now every tin pot town touts itself as a wondrous holiday destination and any any piddling ant hill is promoted as if it were Mount Everest. One needs to be more discerning these days in what you believe in tourist hype to avoid being distracted from the relatively few really worthwhile features of the Australian outback by a plethora of promotional bullshit that would have the unsuspecting tourist believe that all of our mostly flat, boring, dusty, fly infested, and absolutely huge "Outback" is a tourist attraction of international standard. It is not.
The main "outback" attractions, mostly centered (within 500km) around Alice Springs such as Ayers Rock (Ulluru) and the Olgas, and the various colourful gorges of the McDonnel Ranges, are well enough known. We were impressed in 1976, and would recommend these to any tourist, domestic or international. King's Canyon is also worth a visit, particularly to the domestic tourist, but it bears no comparison with the great canyonlands of the USA or Mexico. Australia's other well known tourist attractions, The Great Barrier Reef, or what's left of it after the latest coral bleaching and Crown of Thorns starfish invasion, The Gold Coast and the North Queensland rain forests are not part of the outback region.
Kakadu, now a National Park, we also visited in 1976 before it attained NP status. Apart from a few aboriginal rock paintings in small caves, more rock overhangs, along the edge of the Arhnemland escarpment, and some sites with considerable numbers of waterbirds, we felt was unimpressive. We consider it the most over hyped tourist destination in Australia. International tourists, with a more sophisticated standard of touristic excellence honed by international travel and having been exposed to some of the great National Parks of the world, would be justified in feeling rather disappointed by Kakadu.
In Australia Kakadu has been elevated to an iconic status, as part of the "Outback Mythology" which in earlier times had some basis in fact, but which has now been so over dramatized by tourist promotion to be more myth than legend. This has occurred at the same time that rural industry and many rural towns are in a cycle of long term decline, and many are seeking to reinvent themselves as tourist destinations, despite a profound lack of any worthwhile attractive geographic, historical or cultural features that might underpin their hopeless attempts with some basis of fact. Many small towns are on the way to becoming ghost towns, but are attempting to fight the inevitable rigormortis. The reasons for existence have changed with the decline of the wool industry, and with changes in transport and communications technology. Just as mining boom towns of the 1880's faded into ruins when gold ran out, many outback towns will eventually suffer the same fate.
I am compelled to comment on many of Australia's newer, and particularly "outback" National Parks. One response of government to lobbying of the "greenie" movement has been to establish many of these newer "National Parks" and then brag about what a wonderful job they are doing of "conservation", and to quote statistics about the growth of area of parks. In reality it is a quantity is more important than quality approach. Many of the recently created so called National Parks are an insult to the term "National Park", as it would probably be understood by the more experienced international traveller.
The suburban armchair conservationists in Sydney or Melbourne are given a warm inner glow by each of these politically motivated "parks' being announced, without any real understanding of what they really consist of, beyond a few artistically composed sunset photographs, which can create a romantic illusion around almost anything. Few will ever visit the really remote "National Parks" to see the reality, and most of those Australians who do will lack any basis for comparison to assess them on a world scale, to realize just how insignificant they are.
The derelect shearing shed at Currawinya.
The adjacent old homestead is now the headquarters of the National Park by the same name. This is a well preserved example of a a sheering shed and is worth a visit if you are passing. Its state of disuse reflects the state of much of outback Australia, a land bypassed by time, trying to reinvent itself as a tourist attraction.
The wool press inside the Currawinya sheering shed. Used to compress the fleece into bales for shipment to the processing plants, mostly in far away England in the early days of the wool industry.
Many of these so called national parks are in fact run down uneconomically no longer viable sheep or cattle stations, that have finally passed their use by date, where over a century of overgrazing, bad land management, and the vagaries of the variable Australian drought cycles have have finally brought their unwise and badly managed exploitation of an inherently fragile landscape to an unceremonious end.
One side of the shearing floor at Currawinya. Sheep were held in pens behind the double swing doors, selected by the shearer, the mechanical shears were driven from the overhead rotating shaft. Once driven by an antique engine, the system was electrified possibly about the 1960's, before the demise of much of the wool industry in the late 1980's. After being shorne the sheep were disposed of down the chute, the entry now covered by a wire grate.
On any international scale, many have only fourth rate natural features, often features of interest are very small in comparison with the huge areas of unremarkable featureless countryside the so called "parks" encompass. Some such as Queenslands Currawinya NP include elements of wildlife refuge important to migratory birds, when they have some water, and would be more honestly classified as wildlife refuges. Frequently, due to the irregularly recurring drought and flood cycle controlled by the Pacific El Nino effect that has only been recently understood, lakes and rivers are dry for years, and there is little or no bird life to be seen for several years on end. They are still promoted as if conditions were constantly an aquatic paradise abundant with migratory bird life, when in fact only a few hardy native species will most often be all there is to be seen.
The original engine used to drive the shears at Currawinya, Ann interesting piece of mechanical memorabilia that appears to be in working order still.
Lake Currawinya. Claimed to be an important haven for migratory birds. However only when there has been extensive rain in central Australia, a rare event. We saw only a miserable few birds. A party of people on a bus tour walked part way round the lake and saw no more. A long way to come to see nothing very spectacular, and most times little birdlife.
The brochures for the Currawinya National Park tout it as an aquatic bird paradise. Bullshit, tourist hype. It is just a not very attractive freshwater lake, where very rarely a lot of migratory birds come for a short period. Most times you will see only a few pelicans and half a dozen ducks. This should be a classed as a wildlife refuge, not a National Park. This lake is THE main "attraction" at Currawinya, apart from a few usually dried up salt lakes and the old woolshed. Hardly a a fourth rate tourist attraction on the world scale of things, yet some Australians rave over places like this, reflecting a severely limited scope of travel experience outside their own country.
Along the road to Tibboburra in far north western New South Wales. This is about as good as the scenery gets for several hundred kilometers.
Also detracting from the overall appeal of outback touring, apart from the overall poor average quality of Australian Outback National Parks on the international scale of things, they are separated by vast distances of utterly boring, flat, featureless countryside populated by billions of half dead Mulga trees, or Salt Bush. Admittedly this poses a romantic fascination for some, but the appeal for most people will not endure beyond a preliminary curiosity.
Along the road to Tiboburra in north western NSW we find a free campsite beside a dry creek. Well off the road by about a kilometer, no one can see we are there from the road. This provides remote security. No need to pay to camp anywhere in the outback.
A London bus, abandoned at a water bore in outback NSW. Symbol of the fascination the outback holds for some people. I'll bet the bus wished it had stayed home.
Cameron's Corner.
The "Corner Country" is promoted as a tourist area. Come and see where three states meet they say, OK, so what is there to see when you get there. Well here is the picture. A concrete post, a dead tree, a small poster display shed and the general store in the background. Interesting you think? Well if you do go right ahead and enjoy it to your hearts content. If you want more there are two more corners to fascinate you, Poeple's and Haddon's corners.
Along the Strezleki Track.
More very similar scenery, Saltbush, Mulga, red soil, occasionally relieved by a few small hills.
In the dawn's early light.
Along the Oodnadatta Track saltbush and more saltbush, how much do you want. The photographs you see capture a fleeting moment of fascination, but hundreds of kilometers of saltbush soon gets boring.
The old Ghan railway bridge along the Oodnadatta Track, north of Maree.
A place to camp along the Oodnadatta track.
It isn't a National Park so there are no bullshit restrictions. This country is no more or less interesting than areas that are called "parks", and here you can camp free where you like.
There is no need to ever pay for camping the outback, staying in caravan parks is a waste of money and just supports the bastards who then try and lobby the government for restrictive laws to MAKE you stay in their crappy caravan parks. This happened in Western Australia, until the government came to its senses, and is now starting in Queensland with restrictions on overnight stops in some Main Roads rest areas. Invariably when these sort of restrictions are proposed it is due to caravan park owners who lobby local councils and state governments to pass restrictive laws to try to force travellers to stay in caravan parks. The sooner they all go broke the better.
Saltbush and barren desert plains for hundreds of kilometers. Along the Oodnadatta Track is typical of the sparcely vegetated and featureless scenery between widely scattered points of interest in much of Central Australia.
The well known lines of the poem "My Country" by Dorothea McKeller about "I love a sunburned country, a land of sweeping plains." come to mind. Well the plains are hardly "sweeping", they are almost endlessly boring, particularly after the first few thousand kilometers of monotonous dry half dead vegetation sprinkled across dry and dusty red soil. You have to travel through it to see the reality, McKeller was a romantic optimist at best. Poetic license taken to the extreme.
Photography is able to so easily highlight the picturesque elements, and sunrise shots to create the romantic impression that it is all an unending tourist delight to behold. Well it isn't like that. Sure you will see some wildlife, lots in places, Kangaroo and Emu, Eagles, native birds etc, apart from feral pigs, goats and camels. But you can be driving for days on end and only occasionally find a feature of even remotely low level interest.
The
Australian Economy. ©
An abandoned homestead near Waverley Gate on the Queensland NSW border, symbolic of the state of rural Australia.
The teetering tank symbolizes Australia's economy, burdened with debt, a worsening balance of payments, with no long term plan for the future, a poor savings rate among an ignorant sport crazed population, led by colorless puppets of America. How long before it topples too.
Maybe we could have a National Park led recovery?
On a first trip there is of course more to whet the tourist appetite, all is new, but the basic paucity of landscape interest means that for many people an "outback" trip will be something that may be enjoyable the first time, but rapidly looses its appeal on any repetition. This is more likely to be so if you have had the benefit of extensive international travel to Europe, America Asia or Africa which all afford so much more diverse and interesting landscapes. For many people the outback is very much a one time destination, once seen never to be repeated.
But many Australians continue to believe in a kind of outback mythology. You see numerous 4WD's towing caravans through the endless Mulga in pursuit of the once in a lifetime tour of Australia to which many Australians aspire. Many of them have never travelled extensively outside of this country and lacking a first hand knowledge of what else the world has to offer have an inflated belief in the beauty and grandeur of Australia on the world scale of such things. I did myself, until travel broadened my mind.
Many Australians continue to harbor the simplistic myth that Australia is the "best country in the world", often without having seen very much of the rest of the world. Having lived overseas for much of my working life and travelled reasonably extensively, apart from our two recent major campervan tours of Europe and the USA, I just can't swallow this naive nonsense. It is a fine place to live, but so too are many other parts of the world. Australia has many desirable attributes it is true. Among them is political stability, and a diverse tolerant social structure composed of and very accepting of a large ethnic mix from all over the world. Australia has unique wildlife and interesting landforms, and is rightly a popular international tourist destination, but to put it on a pedestal as somehow superior to everywhere else in all things, as one frequently hears many Australians do, reflects more the paucity of their own breadth of life experience than any encyclopedic antipodean superiority over the rest of the world.
Abandoned. ©
In far north western NSW a modern abandoned homestead symbolizes the decline of the wool industry. Once it was said Australia rode on the sheep's back. Well sheep are notoriously stupid animals and don't plan were they are going, and like the sheep we once rode, the wool industry blundered headlong into crisis. Most Australians still have no clear vision for the future either.
In the nineteenth century there was so much demand for wool that there was some real incentive for people to come here to these inhospitable regions to find free grazing. They were able to just select a piece of land and claim it for free, with no beg pardon to the natives, whom the legal doctrine of terra nullis pretended didn't exist. So as the land was in effect free, it isn't surprising that even the most marginally productive areas were soon "selected" for agricultural purposes.
Abandoned.
The old timers are now criticized for referring to England as "home", but small wonder they felt that way considering the relative appeal of the English countryside compared to the barren inner reaches of the outback. Recently, since the 1980's, much has been made of the rural crisis, the "decline of the bush" in Australia. The collapse of wool prices due to overproduction in the face of rising competition from synthetic textiles, combined with the increasing frequency and severity of droughts brought about by global warming combined to undermine the rural economy. Lack of opportunity caused many younger people to (wisely) leave the bush for the city to seek better opportunities elsewhere and declining populations combined with the economic rationalism of many of the large corporations supplying services to the towns withdrawing their presence, caused many small towns to wither.
Yesterdays essentials left behind.
It's nothing new, and has been seen all over the world from time to time. It isn't a subject of regret, it is just the process of social evolution. Much of this country, forever harsh and unforgiving, has been further despoiled by the application of ignorant land management practices,overgrazing, excessive scrub clearing, flood control works, wasteful and inappropriate irrigation schemes. Desertification, erosion, topsoil loss and salination of the land has been the result in some areas. Construction of levee banks along the Darling River has destroyed the essential flood cycles resulting in the death of millions of River Gum trees and the loss of swampland and lake wildlife habitat, mainly to enable inappropriate industry, in particular cotton growing, that is only viable because the real cost of the water, in terms of the ecological devastation caused by its diversion to wasteful irrigation, has not been passed on to the cotton growers.
Many towns are using tourism to prop up their gradual decline. The increased affluence of the baby boomers, now known as the "gray nomads", and their belief in the "outback mythology" and desire to "see the country" in their early retirements brought on by the computer industrial revolution, deindustrialization of Australia, and corporate "downsizing", combined with Australia being discovered by European backpackers as a cheap and very different destination, are working together to forestall the inevitable.
Tourism, often erroneously in my opinion referred to as an "industry", is now a global phenomena. The universal characteristic is that the employment it provides is generally low skill, and low payed. Domestic tourism does nothing to create wealth for a country, only to shuffle money from the more affluent sectors to the recipient tourist destination. Overall tourism is not an industry at all, because it produces no tangible product and creates no wealth, it just shuffles money from one place to an other. Any economy which relies on tourism for a major portion of its income is destined to either remain in, or decline to, third world status. It is not a bad thing to encourage tourism, as a supplementary income stream for a regions economy, but it is folly to rely on it as a principle source of income, unless you are truly a destination of the first order on the global scale.
So when the "'gray nomads" have all done their "big trip" and realized that they can only take so much Mulga and bulldust, and the backpackers have all returned to London or Frankfurt, what will be left. The flies, the Mulga and the bulldust. The inevitable decline of all but the most astute or fortunate towns, will continue
.
Driving along the Gwyder Highway west of Morree, where the drought has denuded the land of almost all grass, leaving only the half dead scrubby trees, one can see the enormity of the litter problem in Australia. Millions of bottles cans, plastic bottles, rags and assorted detritus litter the roadside revealed in in its naked hideousness, it is like driving through a continuous garbage tip. There are from time to time publicity campaigns to "Keep Australia Beautiful", and annual "Clean up Australia" days, where volunteers spend a day collecting litter all over the country. We often clean up litter and occasionally at a campsite will spend an hour or two to remove all the small items left by thoughtless travellers. We have even done so in Spain and the USA on our overseas campervan tours too. But after travelling through the outback this time, I think Australia has to be the untidiest country I have visited that does not aspire to "developing country" status. I have a saying that "the peasants are revolting", which I apply to those who leave this detritus of their miserable existence wherever they go.
A delightful FREE canpsite at a weir in southern Queensland. But have a look at the next picture.
You would never see roadside litter in countries such as Switzerland, Austria and Germany in particular, where neatness and order are a national characteristic, and I believe reflect a personal and national pride which is sadly lacking in in many Australians. It is generally worse than in the USA, where volunteers "adopt a highway" to collect liter. We saw a couple of isolated examples, indicated by roadside signs, of the same policy being tried in Australia, but vast stretches of highway remain seriously littered, although it is often obscured by long grass, except that now the drought has left the ground totally bare in many places and revealed the grim extent of the litter problem.
Despoiled by the black sack mob!
At a weir on the Queensland - NSW border, this peacefull FREE campsite has been littered by black garbage bags full of refuse. The pissants are truly revolting.
Apart from litter, farms in outback Australia are frequently very untidy, surrounded by obsolete rusting machinery, falling down abandoned outbuildings and just plain rubbish. The decline of rural Australian grazing and the wool industry and the poverty resulting from years of drought haven't helped the situation, but there is more to it than that. The slovenly "she'll be right mate" attitude of many Australians, is I believe part of the long term cause of the situation. Some towns are notable exceptions, where an obvious effort is being made to present a clean and tidy appearance, and buildings are nicely painted and restored. They contrast with others which are well on the way to being abandoned ghost towns, or seem to be reverting to a primitive, pre-developing country status.
Many of the best campsites we found on this trip were not in National Parks at all, but along rivers, on stock routes, or just spots in the bush. We have recorded their precise location as GPS waypoints so that we can always find them again. There are photos to illustrate them in the next section of this commentary, but the exact locations, other than the broad general area, will not be given. They are too valuable to have then become general public knowledge to have them overrun by pissants and litterbugs. However I would consider exchanging information with other like minded persons, who have knowledge of similar places and who have GPS locations and photos to support their claims.
A campsite in the bush along the road from Broken Hill to Menindee. Just an overnight rest stop, as there is nothing here to hold your attention beyond the scrub shown in the photo. In fact the same is true for most of the area.
Often just exploring a side track will find you a place to camp overnight well off the road. Although this road is quiet at night, many highways are very noisy with large trucks travelling through the night. Also being well off the road and out of sight adds an element of security. Although you are most unlikely to ever be troubled by undesirables, if you can't be seen by passers by you are even more secure. We avoid stopping near any town where hoons could be residing and hassle travellers.
Rest Area on the Stuart Highway.
For overnight stops while travelling highway rest areas provide a good free campsite. Often with BBQ's trees for shade, picnic tables and seats, rubbish bins and increasingly toilets.
The best free campsites are beside rivers. Having water handy even if it isn't suitable for drinking is an asset of importance. Access can be a problem in many cases because private land abuts the rivers, but there are many places to be found, often where a road crosses the river and access tracks have been provided.
Near St. George Queensland, about 14km fron town towards Beardmore Dam, a free riverside camp.
Free campsites like this are nicer spots than many campsites in the so called National Parks, where you have to pay to camp.
On the Darling River north of Menindee, NSW. South bank, 7km N of Windalle station.
North east of Menindee many tracks lead off the road toward the river, over or along the levee banks and often a good campsite can be found.
Along one of the old stockroutes, in northern NSW near the Queensland border, every few kilometers there is a watering point on the river, where there is public access, even where private land otherwise prevents access.
Sheltered campsites under the trees and a secluded spot that few would find. We asked a farmer, who had erected a temporary electric fence along the stock route to graze his cattle. It looked illegal, but he claimed to have bought a temporary permit to do it. However the effect was to deny temporarily public access to the roadside. I stopped him as he passed on his tractor and queried him about it, and was told about the stock watering points on the river.
Some landowners will try to prevent legal public access to rivers. At Riverview in the headwaters of the Clarence River in Tenterfield Shire in northern NSW landowners have erected signs along a public road which are designed to create the impression that it is a private road on private property. Where the road crosses property boundaries there are cattle grids across the road, and a cross fence, but no fences on the property boundary along the road. The signs are placed to create the impression that the road ends and you are entering private land, instead of merely continuing on an unfenced public road which is abutted by private land in the usual manner. They want to try and stop you going fishing where the road crosses the river, because you can then legally walk up the river in the bed, parts of which may be dry most of the time, through their land. You are not trespassing on their land, because the public has legal access to watercourses and it maters not if you are in a boat, wade, swim up the river, or walk along the bed it it is shallow or partly or completely temporarily dry. Selfish landowners should be confronted about such attempts to con the public.
Along the Queensland NWS border, a secluded shaded riverside campsite easily accessable by a riverside track. Again it's FREE and far better than in a National Park.
We have recorded the GPS coordinates of all of these campsites so we can find them again.
In southern Queensland, on the NSW border, a large waterhole with several nearby campsites. FREE and not in a a national Park.
The fishing hole campsite not far from the sites above. Flat shaded site right by the river with a deep water hole just right for fishing.
A National Park campsite, Sundown NP in Queensland close to the NSW border.
The creek is dry and the small regimented campsites are crammed together with barely enough room for a tent and vehicle. Shade is poor and the neighbors close and it is all fenced off. You have to PAY to camp here, when there are many free campsites that are much better.
There are many kilometers of completely inaccessible river frontage and only two other areas accessible by 4WD along a 20Km very rough track where bush camping is permitted, even though this park covers about 11,200 hectares or 43 square miles.
Thank goodness that the sheeple are so accustomed to being regimented that they accept this sort of thing and don't explore to find the really good free places to camp outside the NPs.
This cramped crappy campground is typical of the situation in many National Parks where there are hundreds of thousands of hectares of land, and many good sites that could be opened up for camping, often along rivers, but camping is only permitted in one or two tiny areas where sites are jam packed together. Even in the remote outback where "parks" are huge, the same ridiculous policy is applied. The lock it up loonie mentality is so paranoid about opening up a new access track for fear of "damaging the environment" that no use is made of most of the "park" and no access provided to many parts. Often the areas that become "parks" are the most marginally useful land for agricultural purposes, and terrain is often rugged, making access impossible to most parts of many parks to all but bushwalkers.
The "lock it up loonies" will argue that the sheeple will shit in the rivers if you let them camp there, or they will damage the environment by, horror of horrors, "collecting firewood", even though there is a dangerous build up of fuel on the forest floor in most national parks that is clearly recognized as one of the major risk factors in the development of the hot burn conflagrations that periodically rip through the bush. In most National Parks firewood gathering is prohibited and campers are told to bring their own, even though in 99% of most parks dead wood litters the ground in abundance. It is only because the sheeple are herded into concentration camps that firewood became scarce within a couple of hundred meters of the campsite before the prohibition on gathering it was widely adopted in National Parks.
High fuel levels contribute to fires often reaching uncontrollable proportions in National Parks due to poor vehicle track access, lack of the wise periodical burning as traditionally practiced by the Aborigines during their stewardship of the land, and an accumulation of exotic annual and perennial noxious weeds that would be controlled by a more enlightened fire management policy. Allowing more dispersed camping and firewood gathering would help a little to reducing fuel build up. So what if a few stupid thoughtless sheeple do shit in the river, will it do any more harm than a thousand feral goats, pigs, deer, brumbies and countless native animals inhabiting the park, that do likewise every day, not to mention the undoubtedly highly worrying fish crap that is deposited into the water all the time. Is this spurious argument any real justification for herding the sheeple into concentration camp style campgrounds, and failing to allow or facilitate the development of access to the often numerous potentially good campsites throughout the parks. No, the real reason is the lock it up doctrine to which the loonies that infest National Parks administrations nationwide subscribe to, with a mindless devotion, as if it were some crazy new age religion.
I have seen reports on the Internet that in NSW State Forests, that camping anywhere is permitted, and is FREE, and that often apart from bush camping, rest areas and campsites are provided with pit toilets, BBQ's and often picnic tables and seats at attractive shaded locations, often beside creeks or rivers. Not only that but people are able to bring their pet dogs with them. 4WD touring on the forest road network is encouraged in many areas.
Contrast this with the restrictive management of National Parks and one can see the absurdity of the lock it up loonie mentality.
"Without economy
none can be rich, and with it few can be poor." - Johnson [1709-1784]
Part 2 Our
Camper trailer and custom fitted Landcruiser.
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