Plans lodged for new campground at Carnarvon Gorge near national park

A proposed campground development at a popular Queensland national park is hoped to provide more short-term accommodation to meet “growing demand”.

Carnarvon National Park. Photo - iStock

Keen bushwalkers, wildlife spotters or holiday campers could soon have more accommodation options at a popular national park after a development application was lodged with council.

A material change of use for a proposed 156-site campground at Carnarvon Gorge was recently lodged with the Central Highlands Regional Council.

The proposed campground would be located on a 93.9 hectare block, and is anticipated to be a base for people wanting to visit Carnarvon National Park.

According to the proposal the purpose of the development is to help “address the growing demand for short-term accommodation” related to tourism within the Carnarvon Gorge National Park area.

The camp sites would all be unpowered and would be for the use of self-contained recreation vehicles, caravans and camper trailers that generally don’t require external facilities.

The park would be aimed at guests who are self-sufficient with respect to amenities, as there will be no cabins, however two amenities blocks would be provided to those who don’t have their own.

The planning document says the size of each site would vary, however would be “typically large” by industry standards being about 15m to 20m wide by 20m to 30m long.

A view of the proposed camp area at Carnarvon Gorge.

According to the report the two amenities blocks would include five separate unisex toilets, a laundry, three showers and a service room and would be accessible to all guests.

Each block is proposed to have a dedicated 20,000L water tank and would be solar powered.

A number of ancillary buildings would also be constructed including a manager’s residence, grounds workshop and reception/general store.

The manager’s residence would be a single-storey demountable building consisting of two bedrooms, a bathroom, kitchen, living room and deck

If approved the new camp ground would be another option for campers looking to stay amongst the beauty of the national park, with the Carnarvon Gorge camping area and Big Bend camping area close by.

There is also the Big 4 Breeze Holiday Park Carnarvon Gorge and Carnarvon Gorge Wilderness Lodge nearby.

According to data from the Department of Environment and Science, the Carnarvon Gorge National Park camping grounds have had a total of 1489 visitors, with 678 camping permits issued so far for 2024.

In 2023, there were a total of 7021 visitors across all the camping areas, with 2968 camping permits issued.

The statistics do not include the amount of day visitors.

Carnarvon National Park is home to a number of picturesque nature walks including the amphitheatre walk, Cathedral Cave walk and the Rock Pool walk just to name a few.

Walkers can also see ancient Aboriginal rock art along their journey.

In 2023, Carnarvon National Park rangers warned visitors they would be fined if they were caught entering restricted access areas of the park after issuing dozens of fines to people seen taking selfies with or touching indigenous rock art.