Are you game to take on dirt roads?
Poor infrastructure in some parts of Tasmania is being blamed by some for ‘stifling’ tourism on the Apple Isle.
And it seems that there are fears that grey nomads are among the key demographic that is being frightened away.
“There’s half-a-million caravanners on the roads in Australia at any one point in time.” said the Mayor of the Huon Valley Council, Peter Coad. “And a very, very small percentage of those come to Tasmania because there’s no infrastructure here.”
The Huon Valley Council, which is located in Tassie’s extreme south, is in the process of lobbying the Commonwealth and State governments to seal more roads – including the road to Cockle Creek – to allow tourists to reach the edge of the Wilderness World Heritage Area
Mr Coad would like to see funds made available to create a tourist loop from Hobart, north through the Derwent Valley and back through the Huon Valley.
“Obviously it’s a State Government road and it needs to be sealed and we’ll be working closely with the Government to make sure that happens,” he told the ABC. “The south-west of Tasmania is Tasmania’s Kakadu and if we market that from the top of Australia to the bottom of Australia, that’s what the people want to come to Tasmania for.”
Apart from caravanning grey nomads, Mr Coad believes other travellers including those in hired vehicles are being kept out of the area because they are prohibited from driving on dirt roads.
It’s not the dirt roads but the outrageous price to get to Tassie before you even hit any roads at all. Dirt or sealed, we are questioning whether to go to Tasmania or just keep touring the mainland.
I agree much to expensive to get to Tassie they really need to fix that and the rest will fall into place.
Ditto the above comments. We would love to go over, however the cost to get our 5th wheeler over there is just way to much!
It’s far to expensive to bring a van backwards and forwards to Tasmania.
They keep saying they will drop the fares, but it’s the cost of the caravan that is the problem. We can only afford to take the van across every second year then we are away for up to 6 months. We really dont want to be away that long but if you are going to waste money on the fare you may as well make it worthwhile. If we lived on the mainland we could drive wherever we wanted without the huge cost to go anywhere.
I don’t travel on dirt roads with the motorhome. Even though the vehicle would cope, it shakes the bejeezus out of the cabinetry. I agree with the cost of getting to Tas is prohibitive for caravans but I guess while they charge by the length of vehicles it will stay expensive. Don’t know the answer though 🙁
Ditto x 2 , if they cut the cost of getting there and back for caravans , they’d have to beat vanners off with a stick lol , the accomodation sector are probably not wanting vans coming over in droves though !
being Tasmanian I am glad thecost of the ferry keeps lots away, it makes it far more enjoyable. As for the roads, they are fine if you drive to conditions. Driven in all states except camberra and havnt found a road yet that if driven to conditions is a problem
We have towed our van to Cookle Creek aqnd stayed a week. there was plenty of room to free camp, maube the road should stay as is to keep it that way.
It’s not the roads that would keep us from bringing our m/home to Tas it’s the cost to get it over on the ferry. We have 2 daughters and 5 grandchildren there so we fly every time, although we’d love to bring the m/home over but WAY TOO expensive!
Tassie.its a great place to visit and we really enjoyed it and would go back again no worries and the cost is part of travel in Australia or the world for that matter
just do it
We toured tassie and found the amount of low cost and free camps far outweighs tha cost of the fare. 6 months in tassie including the cost of getting our 12.5 meter rig there and back was about $6000 cheaper than the same period in victoria.. (fuel cost of putting our van someware and ferry fares)
Most of these comments are correct about why people don’t go to Tassie. It’s too expensive.
The dirt road I would most like to see sealed, is the Great Central Rd (Laverton to the Olgas’s ) It would open up an enormous opportunity for tourists. It can be travelled now but with caution.
I have to agree with other comments.To enable us to travel to Tassie with a caravan, we would have to budget and book a long way in advance, travel the isle for about 3 months to make it a viable trip and hope the cost of exploring the apple isle would not be too prohibitive.
Having just returned from Tassie with my Motorhome I agree that we were reluctant to travel on most of the dirt roads although some were better then the bitumen ones in NSW. We visited most of the accessible National Parks traveling on some dirt roads asking the locals what the road condition were. If they said corrugated then we didn’t go.
As for the price, yes it was high, but it’s not that you are going to go every year and its a necessary service. We traveled there at night on the deck chairs and then returned during the day on a $75 person special so you have to do some research. We also received a discount for being members of the CMCA.
All in all we found the experience rewarding and would recommend it to anyone.
Things though that marred some of the experience were the high prices for the attractions and the poor customer service plus the lack of reception except for Telstra.
They need to seal the A5