TARKINE TRACK PLAN SEEKS $25M FUNDING

Where, though? After the runaway success of Three Capes on the Tasman Peninsula over its first three years of operation, that is the $20 million question the State Government posed late last year when it called for big-picture submissions for the state’s Next Iconic Walk. Submissions closed on January 11 and the countdown is on, with a shortlist of multi-day, hut-based walks expected to be announced soon.

The call stimulated a rush of interest from community groups, regional tourism bodies, councils and tourism operators responding to guidelines. Proposals are to be along the lines of the 46km, easy to moderate grade Three Capes, which was in turn inspired by the popularity of its iconic forebear, the longer and more difficult Overland Track in the Cradle Mountain-Lake St Clair National Park, part of the Tasmanian Wilderness World Heritage Area (WHA). The walk is to be ideally a four day/three night affair that can be operated at neutral cost by the Tasmania Parks and Wildlife Service, most likely with a walk fee. And it may incorporate other travel modes, such as bikes or boats, the latter proving a hit on Three Capes, which begins with a sightseeing cruise from the Port Arthur Historic Site before walkers go ashore at tiny Denmans Cove to start their trek.

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Proposals must conform to the 2016 TWWHA management plan, a Revised Version of a long-held plan and one interpreted by some as a watering down of the original’s conservation safeguards. If the proposed track uses routes currently available to members of the public holding a valid Parks pass, proponents should consider how to maintain “some ability” for the public to continue to walk there at no additional cost.

The winning project is likely to end up hosting higher-end, privately run guided walks as well as the standard Parks walk, again like The Overland and Three Capes tracks, on both of which the Tasmanian Walking Company hosts exclusive experiences with private lodgings for their guests.

The Hodgman Government made a pledge before winning its second term to invest up to $20 million to develop and construct the walk. Before calling for submissions it was already casting about, allocating $1.5 million to feasibility studies, track survey work and approvals into possible sites including Freycinet Peninsula, the Southwest National Park, The Southwest Conservation Area, The Walls of Jerusalem and the Tarkine.

Wherever the next walk lands, it is likely to bring substantial economic benefits to the gateway town and region. A major tourism drawcard can help turn struggling districts around.

Submissions include the Far South Coast community’s Cave to Coast walk (from Hastings Cove to South Cape Bay), the Maydena Explorer walk (operating in an area between Mt Field and Lake Pedder), at least two Tarkine trails including one by the Bob Brown Foundation, and at least two on the West Coast, including the Macquarie Harbour Trail and The Philosophers’ Tale. Another submission advocates for Three Capes to be completed as per the original plan, with a substantial section of it still unfinished. And the Northern Midlands Council has pitched for the walk to be at Ben Lomond National Park with Legges Tor, the state’s second highest peak, as a centrepiece.

Parks and Wildlife confirms that more than 20 submissions have been received and are being assessed by a panel considering visitation potential, and environmental, economic and community aspects. Design and construction are slated to begin as soon as next year.

The next iconic walk’s broad geographical destination may well swing the decision, with the Government potentially choosing to splash the cash in a region especially in need of a boost and/or lacking a major tourist attraction.

Beyond projects vying through this submissions process, plans are afoot for a number of other walks. Within a few years the state may boast a variety of new multi-day offerings on new and existing tracks. These include an advancing plan by Ian Johnstone of the Maria Island Walk to build private huts along the South Coast Track, which is considered a last outpost by trampers for its rugged challenges and remoteness.

A less controversial vision, intriguingly named the Geeves Effect, would see bushfire-hit Geeveston become an outdoor adventure hub offering new walks and other activities.

Several Expressions of Interest for guided bushwalks with private huts in the World Heritage Area, national parks and reserves were lodged in a process activated by the Government after it cleared the way for more commercial developments in protected zones. These include but are not limited to four Tasmanian Walking Company proposals: a Walls of Jerusalem Lodge Walk, Cradle Base Camp Experience, Frenchman’s Cap Walk and an Overland Track Experience (the latter providing additional huts for the company’s existing walk). It is not clear which of these, if any, have submitted Next Iconic Walk proposals as well.

A BIT of trepidation can go a long way on a hiking holiday, says University of Tasmania tourism academic Dr Anne Hardy. “As tourists we form tribes,” says Hardy, explaining why connecting with others doing the same thing is an integral part of the travel experience. “Neo-tribes are about individuals feeling they are in a group for a fleeting period with similar sentiment and they form bonds while they are there.”

She says the guiding companies do a good job of making people feel they are part of something special. “The walks doing that are the ones creating extremely deep experiences. It’s that extra layer. It is a transformative experience.”

Tasmania’s landscapes are great at providing those peak experiences, she says, and many Tasmanian guides are top-notch, having come through a highly regarded TAFE program. It’s a great combo, but she says self-guiding groups can achieve the same thing. “I think a tiny bit of a sense of trepidation is something you can work extremely well with,” says Hardy, whether that’s inclement weather or a steeper, rougher than expected section of a track. “It’s the ‘Oh shit, I’m a little bit nervous about this bike or kayak or being out in the cold on a boat’. The guide doesn’t have to create that sense. The environment provides a little bit of a sense of fear and a good guide can work with that. Tasmania is a pretty full-on wilderness for a lot of people.”

Hardy sits on the board of regional tourism industry body Destination Southern Tasmania, which like each of the state’s four such bodies, has either led or helped others put forward submissions for the next iconic walk. “I get sick of Tasmania looking to New Zealand, but what they have done well is put that series of great walks in place,” she says. “There’s a real opportunity for another walk to be put in here and I think it speaks to what Tasmania is all about. My thing with all these Expressions of Interest is [remembering] the mandate is for both protection and access.”

Tourism consultant and former Parks and Wildlife director of visitation Stuart Lennox chairs Destination Southern Tasmania, which is involved in several submissions including one to complete the Three Capes Track. Work on it is happening but not fast enough for everyone’s liking.

Lennox is delighted, but unsurprised, by Tasmania’s growing popularity as a hiking destination. “The State and Federal governments have made significant investments over many years,” he says. Initiatives included developing, servicing and maintaining the track network and associated infrastructure, including roads used to access gateway carparks, toilets, huts, signage and interpretation.

He says the State Government’s foresight in the late 1990s with its Tasmanian Walking Track Strategy led to the development of the popular 60 Great Short Walks series, as well as a number of longer bushwalks. “This strategy has been the foundation for much of the effort to develop and maintain iconic walking experiences over the past 20 years,” he says.

Lennox sees significant scope for a new iconic walk in Tasmania, with the number of visitors who bushwalked as part of their Tasmanian experience soaring from 388,000 in 2007-08 to 584,000 in 2016-17.

While confident strong growth potential exists, he says it is critical the next iconic walk responds to market-driven research. “The location [must be] spectacular and relatively easy to access from key entry points into the state. And if the walk is three nights/four days it is important that the logistics of getting to the start and away from the end to an airport or Spirit of Tasmania ferry terminal [in Devonport] is seamless and efficient.”

As well, the walk must fit “our brand” and offer something different. “It is vital that the next iconic walk is positioned to differentiate it with other walks in the state,” says Lennox.

Remember those interstate walking parties we overheard back at the Three Capes long tables, buoyed by their bonding day in nature and hatching plans to reunite next year on another hike? “Let’s get them back to Tassie by developing a walk unlike anything else on offer,” he says.

WHAT are they going to do next? It’s a similar question, but this one is of a more suspicious bent, and it is on the lips of Tasmanians unnerved by the Hodgman Government facilitating more commercial tourism development in wilderness areas in a bid to keep growing the state’s $2.8 billion tourism sector.

While there seems to be broad general support among Tasmanians for another great walk, as ever the devil will be in the details. It is the route and placement of huts by both Parks and ensuing commercial operators that may swing the public pendulum of support for or against the next offering.

While there is likely to be little concerted opposition to a new walk that keeps huts on a small footprint and well outside remote wilderness, opposition is building to the prospect of additional infrastructure built to benefit private companies in high-conservation zones.

A commercial operator riding in on the back of the $20 million state-funded walk or an existing track to build private huts may be in for a rude shock if it fails to read the shift in public sentiment over higher-impact nature-based tourism in national parks and the World Heritage Area.

On this front, alarm bells are ringing for Bob Brown Foundation campaign manager Jenny Weber. “Each time there is a chipping away at a wilderness tract, it deteriorates the values it protects,” says Weber. “Our position is there should be no new developments inside the World Heritage Area or national parks in Tasmania. We want to see these public assets maintained for the public. We want the World Heritage Area, national parks and reserves [valued] for the natural values they were protected for, not for commercial gain of private operators for tourism. That’s where the conflict comes for us.”

Weber not only supports development of a well-managed new walk, she worked on the Bob Brown Foundation’s submission for its proposed 10-day Trans Tarkine Track. The organisation has spent $140,000 mounting a business case and supporting studies for the project. Gaining protection for the Tarkine, which provides habitat for more than 60 rare, threatened and endangered species, is a mission of the foundation and one it believes is more likely to succeed with a multi-day bushwalk within it.

Weber is not a fan of Three Capes, though, describing it as “a walk on steroids”. “They were almost there, but they went too far with the development of hut structures,” she says. “We don’t need to be building villages out there. Realistically, I hear the market is asking for those things, that people would like to walk short distances and stay inside four walls, and have a bit of luxury. However, that’s the sort of infrastructure we think should be outside the national parks. There are some incredible places [outside those zones], say between Lune River and Cockle Creek, and Bob always mentions Liffey, where you can build luxury accommodation, and then experience day trips in the World Heritage Area.”

TREPIDATION is not just a quiver in the hearts of nervous urbanites who can’t necessarily tell the difference between scrubby regrowth and pristine virgin forest. It’s an anxious state of mind affecting conservationists trying to monitor developments in protected zones and coming up against brick walls.

But must it be this way? With greater transparency and understanding, could we peacefully coexist on public lands rather than letting tensions blow them up into new battlegrounds? While some activities are clearly incompatible — it is hard to both drive over ancient aboriginal middens and also protect them, for instance, or to experience the rare quality of remoteness in wilderness if choppers fly by — Anne Hardy says the growth in nature-based tourism demands mature consideration of mixed use opportunities and openness to new agreements among multiple stakeholders.

A flashpoint that caught her attention recently was the conflict over the proposed Halls Island huts development at Lake Malbena within the Walls of Jerusalem National Park.

Hardy was particularly interested in the objections of fishermen and other long-term recreation users whose ongoing access was threatened, rather than the more predictable response from green groups.

“I think Malbena was very interesting because what we saw in the community was many people saying we have gone too far [to facilitate a developer],” she says. “A lot of people said a line had been crossed. I am not saying I didn’t like the proposal, but that’s what interested me from an academic perspective, that groups we may not have otherwise expected to be against it were against it.

“I have done research before [gauging local opinion] when we cut off access to places people have long accessed. I get why they are upset. Places such as Canada are much more open to multiple use. In Tasmania, we are having this real stress because we haven’t got our heads around the idea of multiple use. Maybe there are some places where there can be helicopters and 4WD [recreation areas]. We are a big state. Surely we can work it out.”

In the meantime, the risk of getting Tasmanians off-side through loss of amenity by prioritising tourists and profit over locals is a real and present danger, and it is by no means off the cards just because iconic walk submissions were asked to consider such concerns. If Tasmanians end up being asked to pay to walk where they once walked free, or told they can no longer go where they may have fished, camped, ridden or walked for decades, it’s hard to imagine a lot of goodwill will follow.

Tasmanians feel very strongly about their special places, one way or another. While the next iconic walk may well turn out to be a benign project that properly addresses all community concerns, including protection of indigenous heritage, there’s no guarantee of that.

For some of our most intrepid walkers, the South Coast Track in the Southwest National Park and World Heritage Area is a sacred rite of passage. For seasoned remote walkers, the prospect of the South Coast Track being commercialised looms like a black cloud.

Avid bushwalker, earth scientist and former long-term Parks and Wildlife manager Grant Dixon is one of them. He opposes Ian Johnstone’s plans to build a series of private huts along the track. Whether the huts are in or out of view to other walkers along the 85km South Coast Track does not matter to him; he says the very existence of huts would profoundly change the nature and spirit of the place and the walk.

“In short, the wild character and wilderness values of what is currently one of Australia’s wildest and most challenging wilderness walks would be significantly damaged,” he says. “Surely one major track should be left as a more self-reliant experience, as this one was recognised as in the previous [management] plan.”

Dixon is one of the authors of Redefining the Definition of Wilderness, a book he co-produced with walking track management consultant Martin Hawes and wilderness photographer Chris Bell last year. He says the Hodgman Government’s revised management plan contains “a reasonably robust definition of wilderness as a management objective”. The problem, he says, is that it fails to specify the protection of wilderness as a management objective, and, further, that its zoning scheme allows for development that would have a big impact on those wilderness values.

Also an active member of Park users’ not-for-profit group the National Parks Association, Dixon says he has little confidence in the next iconic walk process.

“There was a much publicised election promise and calling for ideas and supposedly some criteria has been developed for assessment, but many in the conservation movement, myself included, are cynical about what might really be going on.

“We are expecting there to be opportunities for public input when they have narrowed down a list, but with the evidence of recent history, with things just rubber-stamped and lip service paid, none of that inspires confidence.”

Dixon says the process so far has been worryingly secretive.

“I think there is enough public interest to at least release all the proposals,” he says.

“We know some of the proponents [and that is because they have self-revealed], but not all. Not only has nothing come out from the Government, but there is no clear announcement of a timeline or process for short-listing.

“Potentially, it’s going to be a major development on public land and the public has an interest in plans for our conservation and recreational resources.”

Solvitur ambulando is a Latin phrase that means “it is solved by walking”. If only it were that simple.

BUSHWALKS ON THE DRAWING BOARD

More than 20 submissions are vying to become Tasmania’s Next Iconic Walk, with the State Government pledging $20 million to develop it. Here are a few elevator pitches from some contenders:

Cave to Coast: Far South community groups worked together on their iconic walk proposal, which starts at Hastings Cave and ends at South Cape, traversing existing trails and new tracks, and mapping the route to take in tourism highlights such as the Ida Bay Railway. Taking in sclerophyll forests, buttongrass plains, Southport Lagoon and far-flung beaches, the four-day, three-night Cave to Coast walk culminates with a view to Australia’s southernmost point.

Track management consultant Martin Hawes and photographer Rob Blakers were involved in drafting the proposed track, which would be managed by Parks. Indigenous consultants have shaped the plan. Helen Whitty of the Cave to Coast group says most of the walk is on crown land and in state forest, with two sections in the WHA.

Walkers could camp at low-impact sites or stay in accommodation designed to reference indigenous heritage and incorporate vernacular elements from forestry, boatbuilding and tin-mining eras. Whitty thinks the walk has strongly iconic qualities. “You come out of ancient time, you walk across the Lune Plain, the only glacial remnant in Tasmania and visit one of the only sites of thermal springs,” she says.

The Tarkine: The Bob Brown Foundation has spent $140,000 developing its plan for a 10-day camping walk through the Tarkine in North-West Tasmania, a 500,000 tract that campaign manager Jenny Weber says is ideal for the next iconic walk. At 104km, it’s longer than many of the other walks, and that may dampen its chances, but Weber says the Trans-Tarkine Track would be a magnificent addition to state tourism while aligning with the foundation’s conservation goals.

“The Tarkine is the largest temperate rainforest in Australia, but there’s also a national heritage-listed Aboriginal cultural landscape and a hugely dramatic coastline greeted by the cleanest air in the world. Then there are the rivers and wildlife,” Weber says.

“The walk would start in rainforest, head across the Tarkine and down the coast, and finish with a cruise up the Pieman River with Corinna Wilderness Experience.”

Campers would be accommodated on tented platforms along the way. Conceived as a sister walk to the new wukalina walk in the state’s North-East run by the Tasmanian Aboriginal Centre, the foundation’s plan is for indigenous Tasmanians to operate the walk with Parks. It is seeking $25 million to get the walk up.

A second Tarkine attraction is also in the running. The four-day, three-night Tayatea Trail pitched by the Circular Head Council would begin in Rapid River Valley and finish at Mt Bolton. Meanwhile, Robert Fairlie is working towards a Tarkine Coast Walk, a multi-day educational walking experience with accommodation that would be youth-focused.

West Coast: Paul and Caroline Dutton are behind the Macquarie Harbour Trail proposal in the Southwest Conservation Area. The experience would start by steam train from Strahan on the edge of Macquarie Harbour to the abandoned pioneering town of Teekpookana on the King River, where walkers would set off for a four-day, three-night stroll featuring rainforest, beaches, bays and mountains, and ending at Bird River. Taking in Aboriginal, pioneering and convict history, guests would spend time in the WHA on the last day. At least two of three self-catering lodges would be on the coast, with jetties and bunk rooms for 48. And there would be a catered option provided by private guiding companies. The introduction of Par Avion flights from Hobart to Strahan next month strengthens the business case.

Another West Coast submission, The Philosophers’ Tale, would take walkers 28km over three days and two nights. Think mountain peaks, buttongrass plains, suspension bridges over river gorges, temperate rainforest and waterfalls along the King River, with the option of finishing the adventure via train, rail, raft, kayak, helicopter or jet boat. The proponents describe it as a family-friendly walk, with the shorter journeys ideal for children. A fully catered premium option would enable walkers to carry just a day pack.

The Maydena Explorer: Simon French is best-known as the man behind the new Maydena mountain biking park. He also runs a track-building business, Dirt Art, which may come in handy if his community bid gets up. The route begins and ends in Maydena, allowing for a three-four day experience of spectacular peak vistas, wild rivers and more.

“You are genuinely out in the wilderness, on wild rivers and up in the subalpine mountains,” says French. “One big advantage is you are just over an hour from Hobart. Another is that the Derwent Valley is an emerging tourism destination. A third benefit is that we could use a lot of existing infrastructure, and that though it feels remote, it has excellent access, reducing operational costs during development.” While Parks would run the walk, French would offer a mountain-bike finish. Walkers would be accommodated in new builds near the existing Eagle’s Eyrie building (leased by French) and in the Maydena Range, above the Styx Valley.

French’s vision for his local town as an adventure tourism gateway faces noble competition from down Geeveston way with the Geeves Effect gateway adventure plan. It didn’t quite meet the criteria for this submission, but the group plans to have a red-hot go at activating the region, anyway.