Miranda: Gippsland’s tourism businesses feeling bushfire impact

While most of Gippsland escaped fire damage, its tourist towns have not gone unscathed, writes Genevieve Barlow.

Tourism impact: File photograph of Lakes Entrance at sunset. Picture: Gavin Hansford, Tourism Victoria

HERE’S a quiz activity for you.

Get a map of Victoria and circle the Gippsland part.

Then circle East Gippsland and the parts of Gippsland that got burnt in the New Year fires or are still burning.

Which parts did not get burnt?

Name those towns. Refer to the VicEmergency website or app if needed. Orbost for example, though singed on its outskirts, was not razed to the ground. Nor did Marlo burn. Or Bemm River or Lakes Entrance.

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Yet the fires in Victoria’s east that made front page news around the world have savaged tourism across a much wider area than East Gippsland, where they continue to burn.

Even Leongatha in South Gippsland, which is well beyond a country cooee of the fires, is feeling the fallout.

Angela Mosley, who runs Australian Cycling Holidays and accommodation from Leongatha, says the area is green and moist by comparison with East Gippsland, yet inquiry rates — normally five to 10 a week — have dropped to nothing, especially from overseas.

“We had flooding two weeks before Christmas so it’s been quite a different experience for us in south Gippsland.

“This type of cycling tourism is very European — we provide the bikes, book accommodation, provide breakfast and roadside assistance — and so a lot of our inquiries come from overseas but those inquiries have just dropped off the cliff. If there’s smoke in Melbourne we get nothing at all.”

Angela thinks a big sign on the M1 freeway in the heart of the city isn’t helping either. Apparently it says ‘Gippsland needs your help’. Angela wonders if it might be worth adding the descriptor ‘East’ in front of Gippsland.

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“It takes seven hours to drive from one end of Gippsland to the other, and East Gippsland is the two hours at the end. It’s really important for people to hear that not everything and everybody has been directly affected,” says Angela’s industry colleague, Liz Mitchell.

Liz lives in the heart of East Gippsland on a hobby farm on the outskirts of Orbost from where she runs accommodation and her business, Snowy River Cycling.

While it’s true that large parts of the landscape further north have been decimated and that roads from Orbost through to the NSW border are still closed, the length of the classic East Gippsland Rail Trail between Bairnsdale and Orbost is largely unscathed save for a few 100 metres of land which was scorched (including, sadly, the big old timber Wairewa bridge). Otherwise, there’s little visible damage and the trail has been officially declared safe for use, she says.

The same applies to some road journeys. “If you drive from Orbost to Bairnsdale via Lakes Entrance you can’t tell there’s been a fire. If you take the same trip via Bruthen the fire is very evident along a 10km section of the highway near Sarsfield.”

How long it takes for tourists to return is anyone’s guess.

“To get the return business is going to be a real issue because basically people think all of East Gippsland has been burnt,” says Georgie Carlile, who runs a caravan park at Marlo. “We have 500-600 people living in Marlo, a hotel, a shop, a tackle shop and two caravan parks and if we don’t get people here those businesses will close.”

On Monday Georgie had just three of 24 caravan sites booked for this week and four bookings for fire fighters cross the 12 motel units and 17 cabins also available.

“We didn’t have anybody in caravans or camping until this (long) weekend. We had a really good turnout this weekend but we’re still getting cancellations from people because of the fires.”

Les and Kathleen Heyne run the Marlo Ocean Views Caravan Park, which has about 200 sites. Normally they take 40 per cent of their income between Boxing Day and the end of January. But they won’t take anywhere near that this year.

Les is still assessing the figures but suspects income will be down by 70-75 per cent. “We rely on that income to tide us through the winter. We’re hoping we’ll be able to keep on our three staff.”

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Bemm River caravan park operator Mandy Forrester said that as of Monday, with most roads into the small town still closed, business is dead. She’s happy that police have booked some cabins this week.

“To gain access you either have to be a resident or have a permit. We had several families come in over the weekend to collect their vans but at this stage business is non-existent.”

Worse, she says, is the prospect that fire debris washing off the Erinunderra Plateau and heading down river to the Bemm River Estuary, home to the area’s tourist pulling fishing riches, could produce fish kills. “We are going to struggle. It won’t be pretty,” she says.

Business and Tourism East Gippsland chief executive Janet Burton, who was in Los Angeles when the fires erupted in the heat of the dawning year, says it was easy to believe that the whole of Australia was burning.

She estimates local business income is at 10-15 per cent of normal levels. “It’s a considerable issue and we will almost certainly lose some businesses in the region.”

Yet some like Liz Mitchell are staying positive. With 50mm of rain falling in the past few weeks, she says green shoots are emerging across the blackened paddock near her home.

“It’s literally a healing balm over our farm, our paddocks and our souls. It’s not yet feed but it’s healing our souls.”