Opinion: Margaret Wenham v Des Houghton over Mt Coot-tha zipline

As debate rages over the controversial zipline planned for Brisbane’s Mt Coot-tha, Margaret Wenham and Des Houghton go head-to-head.

MARGARET WENHAM:

I GUESS I’ll be accused of being a greenie or a NIMBY for this column. But it’ll be a fair cop this time because I really do have to state my opposition to the much vaunted (by Lord Mayor Graham Quirk at least ) Mt Coot-tha zipline.

As someone who has lived most of her life within a couple of kilometres of the southwestern side of Brisbane’s pretty, forest-dressed mountain park, I’m very fond of it.

It has been a feature of nearly all my life, just as it surely is and has been for all Brisbanites.

Mum and Dad took every single overseas rellie and friend to Mt Coot-tha. They’d march them up to the top of the hill (where we’d all mill about with all the other people’s visiting friends and rellies) and they’d march them back again – figuratively speaking, of course, because we’d pile into Dad’s HD and, later, his HT Holden station wagon for the winding drive up and down.

Once up there, everyone had the landmarks pointed out to them including, on clear days, the sand dunes on Moreton Island. Everyone searched for coins to look through the telescopes. Everyone had an ice cream. Fifty years on, I do exactly the same when visitors come.

Family watching the fog over Brisbane. Photo: Mark Cranitch.

But, back in the day, on hot weekend afternoons, I’d set off with mates along the then rough trails to the water holes in which we’d swim – dodging snakes along the way and in the water. We’d clamber about the Green Hill reservoir.

Then, of course, in my teens, we’d “park” in that wide, off-road space about half way up to the lookout from the Toowong Cemetery end. You had a view of the city – until the windows steamed up, something which I think used to alert the coppers known to cruise about up there at night that hanky panky was probably going on.

The minute you spied a cop car you’d take off, though as innocently as the often heavily worked motor under the bonnet would allow, trying to make out that you’d just really truly been looking at the night lights, and your leaving at the exact same time as the cops’ arrival was just a coincidence. Sometimes you got caught out and the Pineapple Men – we called them that because of the shape and colour of the Queensland Police crest on their cop car doors – sneaked up, shone a torch in and asked what the bloody hell what was going on, knowing full well what.

Up the top of the Honeyeater Track looking towards the D'Aguilar Range on Mt Coot-tha. Photo: Margaret Wenham

There’s none of that sort of caper these days for this old bat. No, these days I relish the quiet, simple things in life. And so it is that in recent decades I’ve found that our beautiful Mt Coot-tha provides we lucky people of Brisbane with another immensely pleasurable activity, bush walking, and there is now a wonderful network of well-maintained tracks through the forest for walkers of just about every capability. (And for the mountain biking types, there’s about a half a dozen trails on which your mettle can be tested.) There’s also plenty of picnic areas.

You know, sometimes, when you’re alone on the mountain’s tracks, the silence of the forest wraps itself around you like comforting rug. Other times, the bush rings to the warbles of magpies calling to each other across the gullies, or the cockatoos making a ruckus as they shout at each other while swooping and wheeling between the trees. The bright red of king parrots flashes through branches.

Echidna going into hiding in the Mt Coot-tha forest park – on the Honeyeater Track Photo: Margaret Wenham

On the Mt Coot-tha trail – Bronte and Cate Campbell often use bush walking as an escape from the pressures of training and competing. Photo: Adam Head

Still other times the tracks are alive with the talk and laughter of other walkers of which there are plenty at certain times of the day.

I’ve spotted wallabies, goannas and echidnas, and I’ve had to stop and wait a few times while a thick patterned python, in no hurry, slides noiselessly across my favourite Honeyeater trail.

The forest dresses itself differently, depending on the time of day. On the southwestern side in the morning, it’s attired for business as the bright morning sun cuts through the foliage and dazzlingly lights your way. In the late afternoon, a setting sun bathes the trees and paths in a soft, golden dapple and the bush and its creatures prepare for the night. After rain, it’s cool, casual and relaxed.

I’m not sure who came up with the idea for these all-zooming, all-adrenaline pumping ziplines which will result in an estimated 28ha of bush being affected, but the Lord Mayor sure seems mighty keen on it.

Detailed designs for Mt Coot-tha Zipline unveiled

One is a treetop canopy line up to 2km long that would run from west of the lookout to near JC Slaughter Falls, stopping at tree platforms . Also on the plans is a huge suspension bridge “skywalk” above JC Slaughter Falls.

The other is a six-abreast, “fast” line of about 1.5km to run from the summit to the Botanic Gardens. Fleets of buses will run up from the Gardens, turning Sir Samuel Griffith Drive into a mega-busway if the projected throngs of zipliners, each packing a $100 bill to pay for their thrill, comes to fruition.

The estimated cost to ratepayers is $1.8 million, with the firm awarded the tender by the Council, Zipline Australia, presumably stumping up the rest of the megabuck construction costs.

Make no mistake this is a red hot issue that is dividing our city. Questions are being raised about the council’s consultation processes and the process by which Council’s Development Application (made to itself) will be adjudicated. By Council? Or should it be an independent body? The State Government, custodians of Deed of Grant in Trust lands through which parts of the lines run, is being asked to intervene.

Things to do to be a Queenslander - mountain biking on Mt Coot-tha’s trails. Above, Ruby Tyler, 21, Dan Pollard, 38 and Kim Ryan, 29. Photo: Mark Cranitch.

Online submissions to the DA, which close Friday, have been pouring in, including an, um, surprising number via the Zipline Australia site. (My favourite of those mostly short-form
supporting submissions was the one that said because “my friend’s dad’s building it”.)

If you haven’t got yours in yet, hop to it via the Council’s website.

I’ll leave you with this thought: why can’t some things, wonderful things like a natural forest park just 5km from our CBD, be left well enough alone.

And this tip: you want to get close to nature? Take a walk in it.

DES HOUGHTON:

WHAT a miserable bunch of killjoys we have become.

A Brisbane-based company, Zipline Australia, proposes an exhilarating harness ride over the treetops at Mt Coot-tha. And, you guessed it, a crowd of the usual anti-everything zealots are lining up to oppose it.

Sometimes I think they don’t want anyone to have any fun at all. Haven’t these protesters got anything better to do with their time? I cannot think of a more suitable adrenaline-pumping action ride that will come with spectacular views across Brisbane to Moreton Bay. A zipline is just what Brisbane needs and I urge Lord Mayor Graham Quirk and the council to do what they can to bring the project to life. Similar rides are proposed for Cairns and Townsville.

The Greens and the Snivelling Left oppose the development on dubious grounds. The proponents plan a low-impact, environmentally sensitive attraction of two zipline routes where tourists fly across the trees before setting down at either the Brisbane Botanic Gardens or close to the beautiful JC Slaughter Falls.

Treetop platform, part of the detailed designs for the Mt Coot-tha Zipline.

It’s the type of eco-tourism project that most cities of the world would crave. And it is the kind of development where tourists will be able to experience the flora, fauna and indigenous culture heritage of Brisbane close up. Thrill seekers would set off from a treetop platform in groups of eight to 12.

What fun.

If we had listened to the anti-development rabble we would have never built the Inner City Bypass, the Riverside Expressway or even the magnificent Skyrail Rainforest Cableway in Cairns.

Remember how the opponents of that project forecast environmental Armageddon? It didn’t happen. Quite the opposite, in fact.

Tourists arrive from around Australia and the rest of the world for a bird’s eye view of the forest.

Crime-ridden Townsville is inviting entrepreneurs to submit plans for a zipline. This is a positive move that I hope would distract local teenagers giving them something fun to do.

The Townsville zipline would scoot down (where else) Castle Hill at a jaw-dropping pace.

The Townsville Bulletin reported Townsville City Council has developed a concept plan to make Castle Hill more ­entertaining for locals, ­particularly young people, and offer more commercial opportunities such as cafes.

Dozens of countries have similar zipline attractions to draw tourists. They zoom over the snowfields of Europe and through the jungles of Puerto Rico. One is said to travel at speeds of up to 148km/h.

We’ve previously reported on an economic analysis in the Development Application for the Mt Coot-tha ziplines that says the project will generate 112 new full-time jobs and $27 million in visitor spending per year. They will also generate wider spending on accommodation, food and transport of more than $17 million by 2023 when it’s fully operational. In a 30-year period it’s likely to produce $232 million worth of benefits.

It’s time Brisbane and other cities cashed in.