As the Easter camping ‘stress test’ period draws to a close, many popular tourist destinations are taking a breath … and assessing how they coped with the influx.
One place where it appears new infrastructure may be required is Tasmania’s Bruny Island.
According to the Mercury, residents there have been saying visitors are being forced to camp illegally due to the lack of a booking system, and have little choice but to incorrectly dispose of their rubbish due to a lack of adequate facilities.
Bruny Island Community Association secretary Tammy Price told the newspaper that she and other locals had been lobbying for visitor infrastructure upgrades for some time, and particular areas of need were improved toilet, rubbish, and camping facilities.
There are more and more caravans on the roaad ... and some places are struggling to cope. PIC: Cizza
“There’s only one licensed caravan park on the island,” she said. “And we find a lot of people actually free camp in areas, which presents issues.”
She said that she would be following up the issue with the new government.
“We’ve only got one dump site on the island, which is in South Bruny,’ Ms Price told the Daily Mercury. “And there’s a private caravan park in North Bruny that would like to extend and has actually offered a dump site but bureaucracy [has prevented it].”
And, interestingly, Ms Price said that a lack of an online booking system was part of the problem. She said that, unlike some other public campsites managed by the Parks and Wildlife Service (PWS), those on Bruny did not require bookings, operating instead on a ‘first in, best served’ basis.
“We’ve actually spoken to a few campers that have just come to the island expecting to get a spot,” she told the Mercury. “And then once the last ferry goes, they can’t return home and they have to illegally camp … so it’s not like you can ask them to move on.”
Ms Price stressed that the island wasn’t saying it didn’t want visitors … it just needed more infrastructure.
“We really do need to actually knuckle down and start looking at really pushing for infrastructure or booking systems or whatever it may be to actually lessen the load on Bruny,” she told the Mercury.
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We towed our van from Yeppoon in Qld. to Tassie a few years ago and loved it. We spent about a week on Bruny, a couple of nights at the pub, then found some sites on private properties which were the best. At one of them we camped right on the edge of a bay, walked out and collected oysters, after catching a flathead and had the best dinner. The National Park sites were all booked out, we like camping at NP’s.
Easter & Christmas are the 2 times I stay home.And that has been the case for 40 years.I think camping has got much worse over those 2 periods.
Hi Alan ,not wrong there.