And there we have it.

[Travis22]

http://www.parkstay.vic.gov.au/accommodation

Travis.

[walkon]

*&%$#! *&^%$#! *&%$#! pricks *&%$#! *&%$#! scum *&%$#! sucking thieving leeches. Yeah I really believe that the money is going to go back into looking after the place and not making it cheaper for some *&%$#! to cut *&%$#! paradise down.

[Travis22]

Couldn't agree more Walkon.

Travis.

[walkon]

This is from parks site

Revised fee structures for camping in Victoria’s parks and reserves come into effect from 1 July 2014.The user pays approach will apply to 197 out of 680 campsites in Victoria’s national, state and coastal parks and reserves. The fees will be used to maintain campsite facilities and services across the state.Changes will include concessions for school groups and means-tested concession card holders. There is also a shoulder period in addition to the peak and off-peak seasons

How long before we are charged to go into the other 483 campsites let alone wilderness areas

[Strider]

What's the point? I think I'll just go back to Tassie to do my walking instead.

[Hallu]

Giving context to those who might not have heard about that price rise would be helpful, Travis.

[icefest]

Context: viewtopic.php?f=37&t=15224

[Hallu]

Yeah I knew the context, I was thinking about others stumbling upon the topic =)

[Kainas]

Yeah I knew the context, I was thinking about others stumbling upon the topic =)

Lol, I stumbled. I am off to read the context now.

[Travis22]

Quite a few people are in for one heck of a shock next time they take the family camping if this is new news to them now.

Travis.

[Giddy_up]

Lucky you don't live in QLD!!!!!!!

http://nprsr.qld.gov.au/experiences/cam ... _fees.html

[walkon]

Lucky you don't live in QLD!!!!!!!

http://nprsr.qld.gov.au/experiences/cam ... _fees.html

Yeah that's what ours will turn into. People will go camp somewhere where it is free, parks will justify expand the fees as more people are camping elsewhere by saying they have to provide amenity and there's a cost to care for the other camp sites. It will end when we have to have a paid psss to enterany parks I feel.

[Ellobuddha]

$43 a night at Lake Eildon. Ive never been there but that would want to come with a hot bath and a roast dinner. Thats a filthy.price to pitch your tent anywhere.

[ILUVSWTAS]

*&%$#! *&^%$#! *&%$#! pricks *&%$#! *&%$#! scum *&%$#! sucking thieving leeches. Yeah I really believe that the money is going to go back into looking after the place and not making it cheaper for some *&%$#! to cut *&%$#! paradise down.

If they do this in Tassie i'll add a few more choice words to that...

Wow, that is *&%$#!.


Goddamn Libs!!!

[frenchy_84]

Do you require a parks pass to enter NPs in vic though?

[Strider]

Do you require a parks pass to enter NPs in vic though?

No pass required, but even in Tassie a pass is only the cost of a couple of nights camping in a Vic NP now.

To be honest this actually puts me off bushwalking in VIC and really defeats the entire ideology of NPs being "parks for the people".

[icefest]

All it really means is that I'll do more off track hiking and camping.

I have no problem with the Tassie parks pass model, but per night costs result in unpleasant administrative costs and are counterproductive.

[peregrinator]

All it really means is that I'll do more off track hiking and camping.

I have no problem with the Tassie parks pass model, but per night costs result in unpleasant administrative costs and are counterproductive.

Ditto and ditto. (By the way, it's a pity this important topic was given such a vague title.)

Very revealing how Parks Vic describes camp sites as "Products". As for booking "Accommodation", since when has it been possible to use that term to describe a worn bit of dirt? (Here's a randomly chosen example: http://www.parkstay.vic.gov.au/mount-samaria-state-park#/accom/66389.) Clearly, the legislators never go near the places we go to.

Part of this is about legitimising future land grabs of public land by "developers". The legislators will point to their wonderful booking system, then say they'll invite opportunistic companies to run expanded facilities in parts of national parks. And bravo, the proceeds will go to support parks, with just a tiny dispensation going to the spivs; sorry, "developers".

Any thoughts regarding the time and place for a sit-in, anybody?

[Travis22]

What would you like the title to read PG?

I'm really miffed that this news is still new to anyone, but clearly it shows that these xxxxxxxxx pieces of xxxxxxxxx have successfully snuck this through. We are well passed kicking up a fuss but believe it or not there still seems to be plenty of people out there who simply believe if they pretend it isn't real/ isnt happening, this will all just go away.

Travis.

[perfectlydark]

Dont hear much up here whats going on in vic but that sounds stupid. I have no problem paying an annual pass or something (like the car pass in nsw). Smells loke a cash grab to proceed commercial interests

[neilmny]

The fees have been in place since 1 July they just haven't shown it that way.
This is thanks to Napthine and his cronies, there is an ellection in November.
It's a joke to charge was it $34 per night for a bogan ville *&%$#! hole like Jerusalem Ck camping.
Something interesting to try, I selected dispersed camping on that page and it only came up
with Kirth Kiln. $54.00 per night for Wilsons Prom. What does that mean, bush camping $54.00
per night and the same for Tidal River???????? They have truly lost the plot.

Last edited by neilmny on Fri 08 Aug, 2014 5:28 pm, edited 1 time in total.

[GBW]

$54 to pitch your tent is a joke. Hopefully the number of visitors will plummet and they'll realise what a mistake it all was.

[neilmny]

Time to hone the stealth camping skills.

[walkon]

Excuse me while I hop on my high horse.

It's our land doesn't matter which state in which we are walking, so it shouldn't cost to do so. I feel sorry for anyone who has been duped/brainwashed by the propaganda lines that have come out justifying this. Why should we have to pay to drive on a road on public land that was put there for a commercial operation( re logging or mining) or was bulldozed for fire breaks etc.
Part of the bulldust propaganda that was espoused last year was the cost of fixing certain roads in the vic high Country for 4wd's. Amusingly the roads mentioned were some of the road that a bulldozer operator I know cleared up or widened as they were using them as fire breaks for the fire occurring at the time, and now you want me to pay for that? Twice! That's what my taxes are for and isn't it illegal to be double taxed in this County.
We all can see that vics fee system is floored and will be expanded upon like elsewhere in this County. User pays system? Well how about commercial operators paying for them, hang on we're subsidizing them anyway so now we are being triple taxed.
I already pay in my taxes for a whole lot of things I'm not going to use, so why should this be a so called user pays system. I pay already. All I see is a rip off system re scam against a small group that's already marginalized.

*&%$#! *&%$#! *&^%$#@! pollie *&%$#! for brains *&%$#! thieves *&%$#! over *&%$#! taxing *&%$#! lower *&%$#! snakes *&%$#!
(How's that ILUVSWTAS got to say it is therapeutic getting it out)

[Pongo]

$43 a night at Lake Eildon. Ive never been there but that would want to come with a hot bath and a roast dinner. Thats a filthy.price to pitch your tent anywhere.

I wouln't go near Tidal River at the Prom if I were you then... $53 for a site... That's disgusting.

No idea if this price has moved, but seriously, $53 in the off season? It's a ghost town this time of year.

[perfectlydark]

$54 to pitch your tent is a joke. Hopefully the number of visitors will plummet and they'll realise what a mistake it all was.

that is a &$^@€¥₩ joke. Stealth camp, refuse to pay, make noise. Thats what id be doing. What a joke

[walkerchris77]

I was camping once and mr ranger came along and wanted money (without a receipt) and I told him I wasnt camping I was just resting in my tent before I moved on. He left empty handed. Tell to f... off. Lol

[surly 17]

It's the rangers I feel sorry for most they have a hard enough time trying to do a great job under the threat of constant job cuts , being under resourced. I haven't met one who's not friendly and willing to give advice, now there going to have to deal with this total bull,,!?

[jdeks]

It's the rangers I feel sorry for most they have a hard enough time trying to do a great job under the threat of constant job cuts , being under resourced. I haven't met one who's not friendly and willing to give advice, now there going to have to deal with this total bull,,!?

Not meaning to start a flamewar, or invalidate your own experiences, but in the 4 years I've been in Vic, my experience with rangers has been utterly and universally the opposite. Officious, bureaucratic, pedantic, and ignorant about the very parks they're being paid to 'manage'. I offer one of many examples:

I did a hike in late June at the Prom, and an unpowered campsite for the first night at Tidal there was ~$53 for two people. Despite having hot showers and splitting the costs, I smarted at that. When we arrived, there was not a ranger to been seen. So we set ourselves up, and left the next morning at 8am, rangers stll absent, still unable to get our alread paid-for camping pass.

My hiking partner was a gutsy, but maybe a little ambitious, elderly man in his mid sixties, who was very keen on seeing the lighthouse, and confident we could make it out and back to our planned camp at Roaring Meg. I wasn't so sure, but couldn't let him go on his own, and he was going. So when we arrived at the lighthose on dusk, I explained the situation delicately to the Parks staff there, and politely asked if they could maybe make a one-off exception and let us camp in some out-of-the-way corner. We were given a blanket refusal, supposedly on the grounds that the weather could become unsafe .... When I pointed out it had been dead calm all day, I was lectured about how weather can change quickly out here, and condescendingly asked if I've even checked the BoM website. I said I didn't need to - I'd instead just phoned my old boss at the BoM office I worked at, and got a more specific local met package faxed to me. When I showed them this, outlining the massive high over SE Vic at the time and the forecast of no wind for 3 days they were unaware of, and gave them the direct number to the forecaster to verify any questions they might have, they told me they didn't have a phone, and the answer was still 'camp somewhere else'.

When pointed out that it was inconsitent (liability-wise) for them to refuse us camping on 'saftey' grounds based on an impossible outside chance of foul weather, yet they were happy to send a 66 year old man with a hip problem on an 8km hike back around the headland to the next campsite, on a cliffside track, at night, into said 'possible' bad weather, they 'generously' offered us one of the cabin rooms that had a no-show....at $133 a head, for hostel-style facilities. They couldn't phone the weather office to verify it was safe to camp, but they could take a $266 payment by card..... We didn't have much choice. It wasn't a bad place to stay, but outrageously expensive, and there wa no wind that night - something I made sure to point out to them before leaving then next morning.

When we got back to Tidal river, we had a shower before driving home. Just after I left the shower block, I was bailed up by a ranger who'd finally bothered to show up to work, who reprimanded me for using the showers despite not being booked to stay that night. When I explaned that we'd already paid Parks Vic over $300 for two nights in their park and were now heading home, I was met with uncompromising pedantry, and a demand to visit the office to pay now for another night of 'camping' we wouldn't even use.

My patience ran out, and I told him (in perhaps slightly harsher terms) I would not pay, and that if he had a problem with that, he was welcome to take my licence plate and report the stolen hot water to the police. I am yet to recieve a summons.

Rangers are not police. They can ask for your details, and use those to either issue you with an on-the-spot infrigement, or report you. But they cannot give you commands. They cannot make demands. They cannot detain you.

It's up to us, whether we let them enforce absurdities on us.

[wayno]

whats the point of using the campsites if you're a bushwalker? you can just go an do it for free unobtrusively away from the campsites...
we get a fair bit of it on the NZ great walks, people don't want to pay the extra fees of the great walks... especially foriegn tourists.
then you get the problems of the irresponsible ones who dodge the campsite and accommodation. just leaving their rubbish lying around in the bush and spreading the mess wider around the parks...