Four-wheel drivers tear up Coonarr

A COONARR Beach resident wants Kinkuna National Park closed to vehicles after spending her Easter weekend rescuing bogged four-wheel-drivers.

Donna Chamberlain is tired of hauling four-wheel-drive vehicles out of boggy tracks in the Kinkuna National Park. Picture: Mike Knott

A COONARR Beach resident wants Kinkuna National Park closed to vehicles after spending her Easter weekend rescuing bogged four-wheel-drivers.

Donna Chamberlain’s property backs on to the park and she said her family had rescued more than 60 drivers since they moved to the area 12 years ago.

And the problem has only become worse in recent weeks.

“We have had 35 inches of rain since the new year and have had to pull out at least one driver every week,” she said.

“Sometimes people are lucky to be able to get their doors open they have sunk so deep.

“The other day we couldn’t even get one car out with the excavator. We had to use the Drott.”

Bundaberg region councillor Danny Rowleson was also furious about the destruction done to land at Coonarr over the weekend.

“There were ratbags down there ripping up the salt flats,” he said.

“The damage being done is just horrendous.”

The council recently invested $10,000 to fence and sign the area to keep out vehicles, but Cr Rowleson said it had not worked.

“We put bollards across the threshold of the salt flats and it was starting to come back and flourish.

“These people have pushed trees over to get in and ruined it all again,” he said.

Ms Chamberlain said having to rescue the stranded drivers was unfair on her family.

“It takes up our time and puts wear and tear on our vehicles,” she said.

“In all these years we have only ever had two people come back with fuel to thank us.”

She said she would no longer help irresponsible drivers.

“Unless they have small children, from now on I’m just going to hand them the phone and say find your own way out,” she said.

“The tracks are in horrendous condition and each one that gets bogged makes the holes deeper and deeper.

“My daughter can stand in some of those holes and they come up to her armpits.

“People just need to stay away and come back when it’s dry.”

Cr Rowleson said he feared closing the tracks down “would not have one iota of effect”.

“They will just find another way in. How to deal with this is something we are struggling with,” he said.

Originally published as Four-wheel drivers tear up Coonarr