A trip to Tassie is commonly seen an integral component of a ‘proper’ Big Lap, and the Apple Isle’s beauty and the stunning camping opportunities it offers, are the stuff of grey nomad legend.
But are things changing?
Veteran traveller and Tassie local, Greg Lowe, certainly thinks so … and he says it’s the sheer number of travellers that is the issue.
“Locals in Tassie once used to wait until the end of January to go bush to visit our favourite off-grid haunts,” he said. “Nowadays, that timeframe has lagged out to the end of March.”
Greg says that going anywhere near a half-reasonable spot in peak holiday periods is now basically a no-no.
Greg Lowe enjoys taking his rig to quiet spots in Tassie.
He recalls the last time locals could go to their favourite spots without an ‘attendant horde of visitors’ was back when Covid rules were still restricting incoming travel.
“A telling comment from a store owner of one east coast hotspot at the time was: ‘We have got our town back’,” said Greg. “I could empathise!”
On the most recent occasion he was game enough take a January trip in Tassie, Greg went bush to a west coast lake in a slide-on camper, with his tinny in tow.
“Bad choice,” he said. “The joint soon turned into Coles car park … sadly, we are in danger of being loved to death.”
Another downside for caravanners heading across the Bass Strait, Greg says, is the sky high cost of bringing a rig.
And he fears the island state may now see a growing trend towards a different sort of traveller.
“The Government seems willing to endorse high-end ventures, yet continually under resources the National Park department mandated with the oversight of such a huge area of attraction,” he said. “Their priorities seem to be heavily skewed in favour of development at all costs.”
Greg took early retirement from an office job, and did a ‘mandatory lap of Oz’ way back in 2012.
“Global trips were then interspersed with regular winter trips to the ‘northern isle’ for up to seven months at a time,” he said. “Families in Darwin, Brissie and Adelaide were always on the hit list, but personal faves in Oz were the ever-popular Kimberleys, Whitsundays, and West Macdonnell’s … with Ubirr and Burrup being the surprise packets.”
For someone born and bred on an island as compact as Tasmania, the sheer size of the mainland took some getting used to.
“The biggest difference about tripping in say WA – where roadhouses are two or three hundred kilometres apart – and home is that, if you do the same distance here, you’d soon be falling off the other end of the island,” said Greg.
The Hobart resident says Tassie definitely isn’t flying under the radar any more, and that the introduction of things like a quota system for some of the major walks are both inevitable and sensible.
“When the new ferries become fully operational, it might spell the death knell for our preferred lifestyle in Tasmania,” he said. “In some aspects, it might be a case of killing off the golden goose … but I sincerely hope not!”
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Agree with him, and I am a mainlander, hence why we don’t tour in OZ anymore in peak season – too many tourists. We are coming to tassie in Sept 2025, tenting the whole way, originally by motorbike, but thought better of it and bringing the car instead, only there for 3 weeks though to see family mainly.
The worst thing always is that many travellers don’t show any respect for nature, locals and other travellers. They want to be entertained and not entertain themselves. The resort has to look like in all the other places around the world. Why do you even travel then ? If in Rome to like the Romans do ! I hope that some shires will be looking to Europe, what happens there at the moment, where the locals now walk the streets during peak season to let the visitors know that they are not longer welcome. Too if the resort is build what will happen when the boom is over ? It is never in favour of the community, it is always in favour of the investors and their influential ‘friends’.
I hope it wont happen.
As a someone who lives in tassie I find it very disheartening how much harder it is to be able to enjoy getting out for a bit of camping in my own state I much preferred it when tassie was a backwater