Bushwalk Australia

Tantell wrote:Does that mean we have to climb over or are we able to open it? Cheers

No need to climb over gates. Bushwalking access is via latched pedestrian gates and one stile. No problems with access I was there last week.

someone asks ...... Why is this an issue? The "paper road" is crown land and you can walk along it

Crown Roads (and other crown land) can quietly be sold to neighbours for a nominal sum often with no effective consultation with other users. Usually there is an advertisement in some obscure newspaper on the back page and then you have 28 days to lodge an objection. The thing is there is no coordinated way for walkers to be informed of such sales. It would be good if there was a mechanism whereby walkers or other users who regularly use a strip of crown land could register with the land crowns office as an "interested party. But to my knowledge this is not possible. If the land borders a National park then NPWS is supposed to be consulted but this does not always happen (viz Corang Lagoon in 2011)

..

Proposed Crown Road disposals can be found here https://roads.crownland.nsw.gov.au/

You still have to do some detective work to identify if its potentially relevant to bushwalking issues.

I'm unsure what is meant by the expression "paper road". Public land is generally open to all, especially vehicular and foot tracks. Exceptions include but are not limited to hazardous areas such as bushfires and landslides, reference areas, roads where there's an event such as a bike race or a fun run, and other reasons. Management tracks may have gates to stop vehicles, cyclists and pedestrians. Tracks and roads may have seasonal closures.

As far as I'm aware there is no provision for casual users to be made aware of proposed changes in land tenure. This varies with jurisdiction. In the context of this discussion, one easy way to make interested people aware is for government agencies to make an announcement online and for interested people to subscribe to that advice. This would be fairly easy and cost less than newspaper advertising.

This map detail attached perfectly illustrates the difference between Crown Land (here designated in pink as a "public road"), and the roadway as it actually exists (the two parallel red lines). The white areas are (or were, in the small instances at the bends in the road) privately owned.

For me, the joke is that we actually had that happen to us.
The local road (originally dirt) went across our farm in not one but TWO places. The Council was persuaded to rectify this.
A side benefit to this was that one of the returned bits of land now hosts some colossal gum trees - a metre in diameter at the base.

Cheers
Roger

micmar22 wrote:

Tantell wrote:Does that mean we have to climb over or are we able to open it? Cheers

No need to climb over gates. Bushwalking access is via latched pedestrian gates and one stile. No problems with access I was there last week.

Thanks for that. What a great time and easy access we had a few weeks ago. Great well maintained sopt

Lophophaps wrote:I'm unsure what is meant by the expression "paper road".

Where a road has been gazetted but no road formed. So it is just a road in theory, but can be traversed by the public.

Lophophaps wrote: As far as I'm aware there is no provision for casual users to be made aware of proposed changes in land tenure. This varies with jurisdiction. In the context of this discussion, one easy way to make interested people aware is for government agencies to make an announcement online and for interested people to subscribe to that advice. This would be fairly easy and cost less than newspaper advertising.

Not sure for other states, but for NSW most crown land changes are in the gazette. So many of them, so it is not easy to find any particular one of interest. Be good if they were in a easily parsable format with lot and plan numbers so could be machine read filtered and located on a map. Crown roads that are managed by the council when sold are not in the gazette but locally advertised and at the url DavidB gave https://roads.crownland.nsw.gov.au/

NSW #JustPassingThrough

The issue of Crown Roads (or paper roads) is very important for bushwalker access. These are not private property. They are publicly owned narrow strips of land designed specifically for bushwalkers and others to use. They allow legal access past private property for those "Just Passing Through".

The difficulty is that they can be sold for a nominal amount, at short notice, with little or no consultation and then that strip of public land remains private for ever.

You can see a list of proposed paper road closures in NSW for the next 28 days here.
https://roads.crownland.nsw.gov.au/
Ideally a roster could be established by bushwalkers to check this site every week and alert others of proposed sales. Maybe some clever computer person connected with the peak bushwalking bodies could also set up an automatic alert system for each local region??? Each local bushwalking club could then make a decision as to whether that paper road was important or not. I think that usually if there are public objections to closure then the paper road will not be closed. All that is needed is a few brief emails.

The process for purchasing a Crown road is described on the linked page below.
https://www.crownland.nsw.gov.au/licenc ... crown-road

One of the reasons listed for purchase is to provide certainty of ownership where infrastructure has encroached on the crown road. The converse is also true if bushwalkers find locked gates or Keep Out Signs etc on a paper road they can lodge a complaint to the Crown Lands Office via this email roads@crownland.nsw.gov.au

Interestingly it is not all a one way process. New crown roads can be created in rare circumstances. For example https://www.crownland.nsw.gov.au/sites/ ... n-form.pdf states the following ....
The CLM Act provides the minister with the power to create easements for public access over Crown land in general. The act also specifically provides for the creation of easements to secure ongoing public access over Crown land that is about to be sold or leased. Examples of where easements for public access include walking and bike riding paths that provide connectivity between public reserves, and pedestrian .... access tracks to beaches or other natural features of public value.
So in the case of Corang Lagoon for example the NSW Minister could easily have saved the historic 1960 walking track.

davidp wrote:The issue of Crown Roads (or paper roads) is very important for bushwalker access. These are not private property. They are publicly owned narrow strips of land designed specifically for bushwalkers and others to use.

No!!

These 'roads' were NOT designed for bushwalkers to use at all.

These roads were put in by planners to enable roads to be build to serve the future communities. I have one at the back of my place, if will never be built due to the topography that the planner did not look at. As for using it for bushwalking .. that too is a no, far too hard and better tracks to use that avoid cliffs and deep water holes.

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Corang Lagoon is in another thread davidp .. quit casting distorted, irrelevant and ancient information.

The above 'strips of land designed specifically for bushwalkers' demonstrates distortion.
'Corang Lagoon' demonstrates irrelevant and 60's demonstrates ancient.

Most of the Crown Roads were gazetted in the time before motor cars. They designed for use by people walking (or riding a horse) through the bush to either get to another property or to reach public land. Many of them are unsuitable for a motor vehicle. Many are of no interest to modern day bushwalkers but some are. We need to be vigilant that these ones stay open to the public as walking routes. They are publicly owned and there needs to be a better mechanism to inform walkers before any are closed. Once closed they never reopen.

Does anyone know who the owners of the 141 Kent Street property are? I was hoping to ask them about some of the trails they've found on their property sounds like they've done lots of exploring and hosted festivals/local people on the land

Access through Nicholas Horse Paddocks in the Dandenong Ranges has been closed to the public for a while now. I contacted Parks Victoria and it's due to people flying drones and spooking the horses, feeding the horses, mountain biking...

It just takes a few idiots

Please help maintain bushwalker access to the Budawangs and other National Parks near Queanbeyan NSW.

The Queanbeyan Palerang Regional Council (QPRC) is reviewing its Crown Roads Policy. Crown Roads are sometimes referred to as “Paper Roads”. They exist on a map and are designed to provide a right of way to other properties or to crown land. Originally they were gazetted a century or so ago to allow access on horseback or foot. In many cases there is no current vehicle access or physically recognisable road so sometimes adjoining property owners try to purchase these strips of land but unfortunately this then inadvertently blocks bushwalker access. As a result Crown Roads remain very important for access by bushwalkers and others to reach National Parks or popular bushwalking areas on foot or bicycle. Several remote access points in the Budawangs including Wog Wog , Corang Lagoon, Currockbilly, Currowan, Nerriga and Sassafras all rely on crown roads remaining. Some old crown roads have been sold in places like the Blue Mountains meaning bushwalkers can no longer legally reach these areas. Unfortunately the new QPRC Crown Roads Policy makes no reference to bushwalker access. Whilst not posing any immediate threat it would be helpful if the new policy specifically recognised bushwalker access on foot as a legitimate use of Crown Roads.

You can help by emailing the council a brief email.
Write something like: Please amend the policy to recognise public bushwalker access on foot as a legitimate use of Crown Roads that lead into National Parks or Nature reserves. OR: Please keep Crown Roads open for access by bushwalkers on foot.

Email QPRC council@qprc.nsw.gov.au referencing “Review of Crown Road Management policy 2023" Closes Thurs 7 Sep

Humm more information?

I was under the impression that a 'Crown road would be under state control... but

The Minister Administering the Crown Lands Act 1989, may publish an order in the Government Gazette transferring a Crown road to another roads authority see s.151 Roads Act 1993.

See https://www.nswlrs.com.au/deposited_pla ... rown_roads

It would be 'nice' if the community were consulted before such transfer from State control.

Proposed closure / sale of Crown Road Public Access to Monga National Park Araluen

It has been brought to my attention that there is a proposed closure of a Crown Road near Araluen that appears to provide foot access to Monga National Park. I dont know if it is , or ever has been , used for foot access by bushwalkers but it does look on the map to be the easiest access point for that part of the National Park. i thought I should post this here as the objection period closes soon in case anyone is familiar with the area. I am also not sure how one lodges an objection. I searched the crown lands website without success.

The blue area is the National Park. The red lines are the potential foot access routes to be closed

Please discuss The Monga National Park access track issue on
https://bushwalk.com/forum/viewtopic.php?f=36&t=41375

Moderator.

WARRIMOO LOWER BLUE MTNS - NSW - SUCCESS !

A ruling has just been released to allow a crown road in warrimoo to be sold but with a permanent right of way to be established for walkers and bicycles.
Thank you to lobbying over a long time by several members of this forum!
Hopefully a model that we can lobby for with future proposed crown road sales that are important for National Park access

So lobbying (and info sharing via this forum) does make a difference !
For details or to make comments about the specific Warrimoo location please visit the part of the forum listed below
viewtopic.php?f=36&t=32151&p=451821&hilit=crown#p403531

Please keep this forum page as an index to other examples

Some years ago the Mt Roland track in Tas , one of my favourites, had to be rerouted for that reason - front scramble the same, the longer, easier access path has been made even longer.
There's great discussions about this stuff in Terry Lavenders book "The Last Post" about the marking of the Heysen trail. Occasional justifications for landholders refusing access to road reserves which cross their properties and rather nice ways that some of these were addressed.
If you've wondered why the Heysen doesn't follow the coast all the way from Cape Jervis to Victor Harbor, that's explained too. Technically large coorporations blocking access to crown lands are breaking the law but the govt of the day sided with their interests.