Inspiration Journal

Are Australia’s Walking Tracks Losing Their Sense of Adventure?

Inspiration - Journal

Are Australia’s Walking Tracks Losing Their Sense of Adventure?

18/07/2023

SHARED 44 TIMES

18/07/2023

SHARED 44 TIMES

Big dollar developments inside of some of the country’s most iconic national parks have led to a diminished sense of adventure and immersion along their trails.

For brevity’s sake, this article focuses primarily on the Grampians Peaks Trail (which I hiked in December 2022) and the positive and negative ways that public and private investments in the park have impacted users’ experiences on it.

Hike With a View and View With a Pricetag

How much would you pay for this view on the Grampians Peaks Trail?

Sunset at Gar Campground

Would you be willing to fork over, say, $533.50?

No? Too much avocado toast last month? Or you just don’t want to splash out half a grand for one of Australia’s most iconic walks? Well, I suppose that’s too bad. This is mainly because – similar to the Green Gully and the Overland Track – well, you don’t have any other option.

Not only are the high fees associated with walking the GPT borderline extortionary, they’re also mandatory. There’s no other way to experience this trail in its entirety than to pay up. But why are folks having to pay so much?

Granted, there are sections of the GPT open for multi-day, overnight, and day hikes allowing for more financially accessible options. However, if you’re really trying to avoid the fees, the day walks suggested by Parks Victoria cover less than 30km total of the 160km trail.

Where’s all this money going?

Lifestyle creep touches us all. From the most remote shores of Western Australia to the rugged capes of Tasmania, the spectre of development is ever-haunting Australian hiking trails. And what’s worse is that nobody seems to really want it.

According to a National Parks Australia Council poll, 78% of people are opposed to any private developments in parks. And beside that, 85% support increased funding for the already-squeezed national parks.

Private ‘luxury accommodation’ at Gar Campground on the Grampians Peaks Trail

This is all to say that some basic development is probably necessary. Higher visitation inexorably means higher maintenance costs and increased infrastructure.

In an ideal world of remaining light on the land, this is what increased funding would facilitate. Think: more toilets, larger parking lots, and more camping areas and trails. These are ultimately positive projects that would increase everyone’s access to – and enjoyment of – natural areas.

Visitation to nature and national parks has certainly been on the rise in the last decade. From 2015 to 2019, the number of overnight walks in the Australian bush rose by 4 million from 10 to 14 million.

Grampians Gariwerd National Park alone saw well over 1 million overnight visitors last year. Since the end of the pandemic, these numbers have surely increased even more.

Given these stats, it’s undeniable that more trail infrastructure, especially in a place like the Grampians Gariwerd region, should exist.

A well-manicured, yet still natural-enough climb on the southern portion of the GPT

Personally I’m stoked that so many more people are getting outdoors. Everyone deserves equal access to nature. This is fundamental on a basic human level, and it’s also a core tenet of Parks Victoria’s National Parks Act. It’s also core to We Are Explorers.

But is this increased visitation leading to that type of ‘good’ infrastructure listed above? Or is it instead leading us into a future of more paved roads, luxury accommodation, and boutique holiday hiking packages?

When it comes to Grampians Gariwerd, it seems there’s a balance that’s attempting to be struck between these two types of development.

For example, many sections of the GPT have foregone the more traditional approach to ‘trail’, and instead have been converted into weatherproofed metal boardwalks:

How many helicopter trips do y’all think it took to get these things up on Major Mitchell Plateau?

Understandably, many of the boardwalk sections were built with intention to prevent erosion and protect the fragile heathland that they pass through, but I don’t know.

This feels more like a fiscal/budget-oriented decision than a conservation-oriented one. Wouldn’t a tiny bit of signage and a little bit of trust and education of folks go just as far and be much more immersive and rewarding?

Or is that just the Abbey-esque American in me? Perhaps I haven’t lived in the nanny state long enough to appreciate this type of prescriptive walking.

What’s the true cost?

It’s well-known that Australia does love to over-engineer its trails, and I actually enjoyed the ‘cracked sandstone’ staircases that have been constructed along the GPT, but it’s also dangerous.

The door that these types of projects open, and the costs that are associated with them (and then passed on to the users), might be leading us down a trail that we didn’t really want, or even ask for.

And furthermore, these types of engineering only exist as long as the money lasts, as evidenced by this bit of the trail that’s still awaiting ‘upgrade’.

R.I.P my ankles

The disparities in quality and accessibility don’t just end on the trail.

Between Parks Victoria’s stalled development of large sections of the Grampians Peaks Trail and the new availability of private ‘luxury accommodation’ through licensed tour operators on other parts, the ball feels like it’s really being dropped on this project.

Let’s take a look at the numbers. If you want to hike the full GPT, it costs $48 per night to camp on a tent pad. This is already $38 above the average price of a Parks Victoria campsite, and yet Parks Victoria chair John Pandazopoulos says that this is an appropriate cost which is ‘ensuring the cost of maintaining the track and servicing all the sites’.

From a rational standpoint though, this sounds more like translucent damage control than the truth. Because if that were true, then these sites would cost about the same as any of the totally finely maintained sites in Alpine, Otways or Wilsons Promontory National Parks, which are all $10-15 a night.

Thus it seems fairly evident that these prices imply the costs of overdeveloping the trail, and continuing that overdevelopment even after it has been opposed, foiled or stalled.

Grampians Peaks Trail, Taylor Bell, luxury campsite on the trail

Of course, you also have the option to pay $1,850 for three days and two nights in luxury cabins on the northern section of the trail, and the stated plan is to have these cabins eventually available along the entire stretch of trail, at a price which will surely exceed the current $6,000 package.

You could also just fuck around and fly to Nepal, walk up to Everest Base Camp, and gorge yourself on pizza and chicken wings every night for less.

$48 already feels ridiculous enough, especially when our consent to paying this much has been largely manufactured. But the best part is that $48 per night doesn’t always end up being one of the luxe campgrounds like Yarram or Gar either.

Due to how half-baked the original $33 million plan was, many campgrounds are decidedly more primitive. In some areas, there’s not much more than a shadeless, shelterless, parallelogram of flattened dirt with a couple of picnic tables, a pit toilet, and a water tank (which would be great if one wasn’t paying so much, to be honest).

Late afternoon in the shelterless common area at Durd Durd | Photo by Ultralight Hiker

At the end of the day, it’s hard to know who asked for all of this. And I guess that’s the point. Because let’s be honest. If the hut’s there, you’re going to use it – especially to justify how much you paid.

Who wouldn’t? I know I did. But did I necessarily want it? Did I need it? It’s worthwhile imagining instead a different GPT. A much more affordable one without boardwalks, shelters, rainwater tanks, and very elaborately designed drop toilets.

I think everyone on this hike has to ask themselves what they want the future of trails and national parks to look like, and if this is really it.

Can we not trust people to follow the basic principles of Leave No Trace, such as carrying a water filter, pitching their tent in established sites, and staying on a trail? And furthermore, why are people being charged so exorbitantly to encourage such an underestimation of basic human decency?

Again, everyone deserves the same access to the outdoors, and that sense of equity disappears at a rate of $48 a day. It’s hard to imagine any student, service industry worker, or casually employed person that wants to dish out this kind of money for a hike.

Public Parks for the Public

I totally agree with James McCormack that ‘the provision of new infrastructure – and that includes accommodation – within our national parks should be the preserve of public authorities. Period’.

Sure, the luxury huts on the GPT were built by Parks Victoria using public money. But why then is their use limited to those who can afford to pay thousands of dollars to have a tour operator lead them along the trail?

Folks are being priced out of their own backyards, and it’s being done in the name of bad faith conservation and ‘ecotourism’.

But even beyond this, I’d argue that the placement of new infrastructure like solar-powered huts and over-engineered trails is manufacturing the public’s consent to paying such high prices for hikes, thus inviting the fox into the alloy-reinforced fuel stove cooking area.

The next stop on these types of infrastructure projects is Cradle Mountain. Although maybe this kind of ‘ecotourism’ is just what you get when you mix capitalism and conservation.

Part of what makes this view special is that there’s not a cable car in it

In short, it’s understandable that revenue needs to be raised in order to fund basic maintenance of these natural places. However, neither private development and large-scale infrastructure projects nor private usage of public infrastructure, as seen on the GPT, seem like the best solution to underfunding.

Because – and correct me if I’m wrong here – it seems like entrusting a huge portion of land stewardship to a group of uber-rich white dudes hasn’t had the best historical outcomes in the past.

Regardless of this precedent, and apart from the many already-developed trails, more recent proposals to develop accommodation-based ‘holiday hikes’ in Beowa, Alpine, and Great Sandy National Parks have already been approved and are currently underway.

From a pragmatic point, the solution seems simple enough – increase public funding for national parks and emphasise smaller-scale infrastructure projects to de-incentivise the private developments within them.

As one of the most visited national parks in the country, perhaps in Gariwerd Grampians National Park, underfunding isn’t the underlying issue, and throwing more public money at the park isn’t the sole solution. But this isn’t the case for every national park around the country in which private infrastructure is being proposed and built.

Making bad faith arguments like ‘increased access’ (for a few wealthy boomers) and ‘creating economic opportunities’ (is it worth undermining an entire region to create eight new jobs?) is completely unfair to the majority of people who still want to enjoy nature in a more natural way.

Plus, this way, as long as entities like Parks Victoria are only receiving public funding, they’ll remain accountable for the best use and practice of the public trails that they maintain. Right? Right?!? Guys?!?!?!?

SHARED 44 TIMES

COMMENTS

Andy Hutchinson says:

20/07/2023 at 9:15 am

Couldn’t agree more. They recently ‘upgraded’ the path in the Murramurang National Park and destroyed everything I liked about it. It was one of the few spots between Kiama and Batemans Bay that still felt properly wild and now they’ve sanitised it and killed the whole vibe.
1. Tim Ashelford says:
  
  20/07/2023 at 11:16 am
  
  Don’t hate on us too much for our article on the MSCW next week Andy! There’s definitely a balance that needs to be struck. I didn’t mind the new trail but I never experienced it beforehand.
Emily says:

20/07/2023 at 9:28 am

Because there are very very few parks I have revisited (only 25 and at the beginning of my hiking interest), then I didn’t have an awareness / hadn’t thought about the charges & changes they cause. So thanks for the education! Very very good points! I think there’s an appetite for some easy, accessible, and a little lux campgrounds similar to Gar, where the quality & weight of your tent doesn’t matter much. They make it easy for hikers starting out. But it should be the exception not the rule. And you’re right, we need to carefully consider when that’s justified.
Igor says:

20/07/2023 at 10:31 am

Cudos for bringing this topic into focus, very much agree.
1. Melissa says:
  
  20/07/2023 at 8:19 pm
  
  It seems to me that Australia is trying to copy the New Zealand Great Walk model – with mixed results. Unfortunately, Australia does not have the backcountry hut culture of New Zealand and governments have gone straight from no huts to luxury huts, with no in-between. It’s a shame as cheap, basic, public huts are a great way for people to experience the outdoors!
Alan says:

20/07/2023 at 2:00 pm

What annoys me is the way they put all their funding into big projects and cease maintaining other tracks. It’s especially true in Tasmanian as well, like the Moonlight ridge track. So often a couple of guys with a brush cutter would make them passable but getting to a lot of these places without a track is really hard. Shows all they really care about is the money.
Ian says:

20/07/2023 at 7:15 pm

National Parks have been heading this way for a long time. I remember paying a modest fee (maybe $20) for entry into parks around south west WA 20 years ago. OK, don’t mind contributing to weed and feral animal control. Then the road in is sealed to a hotmix carpark full of brand new landcruisers next to an “interperative centre” staffed by an army of people in flash uniforms. What am I really paying for here?
Erica says:

20/07/2023 at 10:51 pm

In theory I agree about trusting people to do the right thing; however, I have seen too much to the contrary. I lived in Texas for awhile and visited ‘unregulated’ nature, and it was FULL of trash. I don’t know how or why, but there is a large proportion of humans who like to visit nature without preserving it. Look at Freycinet … the amount of tourists there going off the track despite very clear infrastructure, guidelinesand explanations. People just don’t care or understand. It sucks for sure, but if we don’t regulate, we will lose it all together.
Sonya Underdahl says:

21/07/2023 at 1:41 am

The dumbing down of our tracks to make dry boot tracks and allow 6 developers free access to our last sections of wilderness set aside for conservation of biodiversity is horrifying. Spicers Scenic Rim Trail only pay $10,000 per year for the creation of their exclusive World Heritage and national parks resorts. Meanwhile, we pay for pest mitigation, road maintenance, with the redirts, their sewerage, bringung in pig, mice, lantana, orange spore fungus and other invasive species as we ‘open’ up tracks and trails for theur sole benefit. Light pollution in a country with 80% nocturnals, many endangered. The impacts are severe .. all for ecotourism to create minimal jobs with local tourism operators blocked out, including local bars, cafes, restaurants, and accommodation… they’re not going there. They come, walk, drink a Chardonnay that’s trucked in on roads we grade and maintain then fly home. A huge loss socially, economically but more importantly environmentally. A developers land grab. Disgusting
ian says:

21/07/2023 at 10:19 am

You forgot to mention the increased carbon footprint of these developments. As hiking goes upmarket the cost of servicing is not only more dollars but more petrol, helicopter fuel etc. being burnt per visitor.
Pete says:

21/07/2023 at 10:24 am

This! I have been thinking along the same lines a lot lately.

I’m all for making wild places accessible (physically and financially). I know how much being immersed in nature improves my physical and mental health, as well as general well being. I’d love others to benefit from this no matter what their budget or physical capacity.

However, this shouldn’t come at the expense of the environment, of people not being able to afford to access places, nor the loss of a true experience and representation of wild places.

During and post COVID, I’ve noticed more people visiting National Parks. Great! Except…I have also noticed a shift in attitude and behaviour amongst many visitors.

For some, the ethos seems to be, ‘Here’s something to do and something to chuck on my Insta account.’ I see rubbish left behind, hear loud music being played on boom boxes (how’s the serenity?!), see graffiti on rock art sites and trees, see people wearing completely inappropriate clothing and footwear (and not of a cheap variety!) and then hear them complaining about a track being too hot/cold/hard/dirty/sans facilities like ‘good coffee’.

There has also been an ever-increasing number of folks who seem more focused on themselves and the perfect pose for a selfie than the experience of the environment around them. They don’t stop, look, smell, or focus on their surroundings. Worse still, they are quite happy to head off track, ignore warning signs, chase animals and endanger their own lives in the name of the perfect shot.

I recently completed a 21km loop near O’Reilly’s in SE QLD. When we arrived at the first of many waterfalls, there were a few people there already. One spectacular-looking couple had rock hopped up to the pool beneath the falls and were, at first glance, enjoying a refreshing dip. And then, I realised what they were actually doing. They were checking light levels, applying filters, comparing shots, and re-taking shots because the wrong angle showed something about their bodies that they felt didn’t represent their ‘best self’. They spent what felt like forever doing this, then made their way down and discussed which photos should be posted. I rarely saw them stop to take in their surrounds.

We got out of there quick-smart to get ahead of the crowds.Mercifully, no one seemed interested in venturing beyond that first set of falls. We had the rest of the track mostly to ourselves and a small number of others keen to experience the environment.

I guess my concern is that, more and more, National Parks are being forced to pander to the expectations (not necessarily the needs) of a widening number of visitors who want all the bells and whistles. Those who expect to be fully catered for, for everything to be curated and safe. I’m pretty certain that they do this to supplement dwindling funding from governments at all levels. Instead, they are forced to generate sufficient revenue to cover their own costs. Then, they enter into ‘public-private partnerships’ or lease out space to luxury tour vendors as a way to ease the financial burden (or sometimes get a minister or two off their back).

I can see how raising the price of access to hikes like the Overland is a natural evolution of this, as well as and attempt to manage impact and safety by limiting foot traffic. However, it has detrimental impact – it precludes access from those who would appreciate the experience, but can no longer afford it.
Peter Hatton says:

23/07/2023 at 6:43 am

There was talk some time ago about sanitizing The Kokoda Track to make it easier to walk.
Hello !!!!, t’s not meant to be easy. The best part about that walk was the challenge.
Wake up silly government people.
Steven says:

24/07/2023 at 10:48 am

I tend to agree with the basic tenets this piece, but this is terrible reporting. The problems presented have substance, but the solutions offered are bolstered by arguments which are lazy at best and disingenuous or misleading at worst. I won’t reply to the hyperbole and logical fallacies, but stick to addressing two glaring factual inaccuracies:

1) The author suggests that users cannot access the trail without payment, which is not true. Only the campsites are subject to fees. Many segments are walked as day hikes, and many have been for decades. What’s more, a hiker with even a modicum of fitness and navigational savvy will easily be able to plan a GPT hike which eschews the need for these campsites in favour of cheaper and/or free alternatives. In his other article, the author alludes to this idea, but in this one he describes the fees as “mandatory”.

2) The author suggests that the “luxury huts” are the fruits of private investment, and that “public funds” would be the panacea to this problem. In fact, the huts (and everything else on the GPT) are owned, operated and exclusively funded by PV. Usage is licenced to commercial operators, who are stakeholders but have no ownership. The GPT remains “the preserve of public authorities” meaning that the author and McCormack’s grasp on the situation is far from complete.

Instead of waxing philosophical about Abbey, the author might be better served evoking Thoreau and encouraging civil disobedience. Except that he hasn’t – while espousing the evils of the development of the GPT in one breath, he has also produced an article (linked to in this piece) offering superlatives about the trail in another. This is either opportunistic but vacuous content creation, or it’s a lack of editorial direction and moral compass. Neither are good.

By walking the trail (which one assumes the author or publication paid for) and encouraging others to do the same, the author and publisher have tacitly endorsed the business model the GPT represents, no matter what this thinkpiece says. This is hypocrisy.

There are plenty of true wilderness hikes in Australia. This is not one of them, and neither is the Three Capes, Overland Track, or Scenic Rim Trail. The horse has bolted on these. However, if we wish to preserve our existing wilderness hikes (see also Alpine Track, Tyndalls, Cooloola), we would be better served discussing the governance and legislation which allows these developments to take place, as well as the public comment process and with it’s biases and lack of efficacy. To be fair, this might be a little esoteric for the We Are Explorers blog, and certainly demands greater depth of research than the author appears to have demonstrated here.
1. Amy Fairall says:
  
  25/07/2023 at 11:44 am
  
  Hi Steven,
  Amy Fairall, News & Features Editor here. I appreciate your comment.
  
  1) Certainly, day hikes along the GPT are accessible for free, although only sections at this stage. I’ve amended the article to include mention of this. However as a publication, it would be irresponsible of us to encourage wild / dispersed camping within a national park that is putting a stop to it by 2024 (see the Greater Gariwerd Landscape Management Plan published 2021). Besides this, We Are Explorers is dedicated to making the outdoors accessible to everyone, no matter their skill or experience level. Your suggestion that altering the course and sleeping arrangements of a 13 day hike is a simple task that any hiker should be able to accomplish is at great odds with that.
  
  2) I agree that there is a suggestion that the luxury huts have been privately paid for due to a lack of public funding to the national park. I’ve also amended this to make it clearer that the author is speaking more generally about private infrastructure across a wider range of national parks. However, the fact that these luxury huts were funded with public money, but the use of them is exclusive to those who can afford to pay thousands of dollars to be led around a trail by a private company, is highly concerning. Infrastructure paid for by the public should be for accessible public use.
  
  Additionally, I fail to see how a writer could gain a comprehensive grasp of the nature of the trail without walking it in its entirety first. And as stated above, without wild camping as a sustainable option, there’s little other choice than to fork out the money. Certainly, the same author has written a extensive guide to hiking the GPT, and although there are plenty of superlatives about the hike (it’s a beautiful national park after all), there’s still plenty of critique around the costs and overdevelopment of the hike within that article.
  
  We’re always interested in having a range of opinions and takes on these topics. If you’re interested in digging deeper into the discussion around the governance and legislation of private development in national parks, please get in touch! editorial@weareexplorers.co
  
  Cheers,
  Amy
  1. Steven says:
    
    25/07/2023 at 6:05 pm
    
    Hi Amy,
    Thanks for your reply, I appreciate the time you took with it and for your willingness to discuss the topic further.
    
    For the record, I was not suggesting dispersed camping as an option either. If nothing else, this would fail in a pragmatic sense due to the availability of water. Rather, I was suggesting alternative campsites – for example, Stoney Creek makes a good alternative to Bugiga.
    
    That aside, your point is well taken – the allocation of public funds and resources is the key issue here, and I absolutely agree that these resources should represent the greatest public outcomes possible and not benefit the privileged few. This is why the facts matter and journalistic integrity is important, because they inform us on our choices. A privately owned hut and a publicly owned hut which is leased commercially are not even close to similar – they are galaxies apart. The former offers no leverage for public intervention, whereas the latter offers us as stakeholders the chance to hold government bodies accountable for the allocation of our taxes. There are many avenues for this, which are worth exploring and engaging.
    
    Thanks for the offer to examine this more than thoroughly. I will see what I can dig up and let you know if I have anything that may interest the readership.