Another whinge about Forestry Tas

[Nuts]

exactly, it's called management, a bunch of people get together toil over what the safest (or perhaps cheapest) option might be then they take action. The Reynolds Falls Track being on the Sophia and not Cradle 1/100k makes sense to me. You just needed to remember to take the right ^%#%@* map lol...lol.. I'm sure the polite political answer will be more subtle though if it comes..

[Azza]

This gate was bomb proof.. It would have required a big dozer to knock it down. 4wd with winches wouldn't have had a chance.
Reinforced steel filled with concrete and the lock box was complete enclosed and impossible to cut.
We had to shift the boulders next to the gate because that was an easier prospect that trying to knock the gate down.

The police and ambulance did not have any special equipment we're just talking the local cops from down the road in a 4wd and a standard ambulance.
They couldn't get the ambulance in because there was no where to turn around if the gate couldn't be opened.
Its not really the paramedics job to be breaking into stuff. - Isn't that the SES who have that gear?

The landowner next door believed that the road was public right of way and questioned the legality of the gate.
I'm not quite sure how the forestry thing works - But it was Gunns signs as opposed to Forestry Tas. I imagine the land was a combination of privately owned and state forest.
Contracted to Gunns for logging in the past.

FYI - Oll - the lock on the other side of the gate was a red herring... It couldn't pivot from that side. I had several hours to analyse the gate.

This all would have been a lot easier if the key holder had just handed over the entire set of keys. We would have been out of there is a hour or two.

[north-north-west]

I bet the Batmobile would have taken it out.

[photohiker]

The landowner next door believed that the road was public right of way and questioned the legality of the gate.

Now we're talking.

Its probably too late, but the amount of restriction for members of the public to cross public and private land in Australia is deplorable. I didn't actually realise what we have lost until I visited Scotland.

[doogs]

Its probably too late, but the amount of restriction for members of the public to cross public and private land in Australia is deplorable. I didn't actually realise what we have lost until I visited Scotland.

Yup the laws in Scotland are awesome; Tresspassing? I dont know the meaning of the word. The trespassing law just doesnt exist in Scotland, you can only really be prosicuted for damage to property.
I bet if there had been a fire in the state forestry that makes up Stevensons Lookout, the gate would have been opened within an hour. But some poor bloke with a busted leg lying in agony on a forestry road, screw that on a Sunday night I am watching the crappy season finale of "The Block". Hmm.. *maybe the emergency services should have been told there was a fire*.
As the accident happened in state forestry but the gate that had to be bypassed with the bulldozer was, I think, on private land does the right of access stand? If it is as suggested a public right of way, but the gate is locked, was it right to bulldoze around it. I am still trying to work out Australian laws regarding tresspassing and rights of access.
With the decline of forestry and the increasing popularity of bushwalking something needs to be done about access. More gates will be locked and more people out in the bush increases the likelyhood of an accident. If an ambulance cant get through a gate which is under an hours drive from Launceston on a major forestry road there is something very wrong with the system, will it take a death to remedy the issue. I know that sounds a bit dramatic.

[Ent]

Hi Mark

Hopefully better maps than what Tasmap flogs us. If you have some time check out the Sophia 1:100,000, Cradle Park Map, and the 1:25,000 map (Pencil Pine?) for the track to Reynolds Fall. Sophia has it, Parks Cradle Map has expunged it from the records, and the 1:25,000 map was last updated 1984 (reviewed 1987) so does not know about it. And that is not uncommon Oh yes, the person that I voted top of the ticket has a rather Ent like email to deal with. Took them two weeks to acknowledge it but they have. Now will my faith be rewarded in the political process

Cheers

I can kind of understand that in regard to the cradle area. The ammount of inexperienced ppl who go there probably think oh look a track to a waterfall.. thinking it might be as good a track as in the rest of the park. Easier to just get it off the map, and leave it to those in the know yeh???

The big issue is standing on a road and the map has it say five hundred metres away. Are there two roads, three, four or have I set my GPS on the wrong datum? In this case we have three maps with no common view on what appears on the ground. I would suggest that even the PCT is dangerous especially if you are not a local but that is marked on the Cradle Map

My view is clear that maps should contain as much detail as possible before readability is compromised. What we have at the moment is mess.

Cheers

[Ent]

Hi

Sadly gates exist to stop the idiots. Leave a gate unlocked and before long someone will turn the area into a makeshift tip or worst. Also you have legal reasons with people visiting your site suing for damages if something happens to them.

Locally we have a ridiculous situation where a local farmer had fenced off an area due to caves to stop his livestock from been injured but did not lock the gate. This fencing also protected the cave system. A win win situation. He was happy to allow cavers to explore the area and had an interest in how the cave system fitted together himself. Perfectly normal Tasmanian situation.

Then someone injured themselves and wanted to sue him. Another person decided that the area was valuable and wanted to have it listed along with large additional chunks of the farmers land incorporated in it. Solution for farmer, lock the gate and out up "trespasser will be prosecuted" signs

As for 4wd and winches, bunch of idiots drove into a newly built rest stop area and destroyed buildings and toilets totally. Result a locked gate and then complaints from the elderly and disable that access to the toilets was now difficult.

Easy to criticise landholders but not so easy to find a solution. Oh and yes when at Council just about everyone seamed to dispute road ownership and even more on who needs to maintain it.

But to the reason for this thread the fact the gate was shown as locked on Tasmap should have signalled to the emergency services that a road rescue was likely not going to be an option. And yes there are plenty of unlocked roads that an ambulance or even moderate four wheeler can not get down. As said worthwhile raising this matter with the authorities as a solution is needed as sounds like bureaucrat city type thinking is being applied to bush rescues.

Regards

[mattmacman]

Me thinks a thermal lance or thermite charges are in order =D But seriously i think that a master key isn't really a possibility, like the idea of scotland but cant see that happening anytime soon, thermite charges could actually work im sure they'd have have much better luck with the gate then 10 4WD's could, hell you can make the stuff at home =D I know what im adding to my kit!