Feet on the ground
Oh dear! I regret that Sally King (February NPJ) failed to spot the irony in my letter (NPJ Dec 99), which was intended to provide some light relief to an otherwise serious issue. Sorry, Sally, to distress you. Did you really think an NPA member could be so narrow-minded? (or wealthy, even!)
No, I agree with you entirely and, with my feet planted firmly on the ground (unless I’m rock climbing or canyoning), I hope to meet you walking in a national park before long.
Rick Jamieson’s news in the same issue (Feb NPJ) about track closures is of concern, and Marion Woof’s letter about pig sightings is timely; but I’m out of tune with Gwendoline Bell on her certainty that cats in the wild are better than no animals at all.
Keep up the lively correspondence columns in the Journal!

Adrian Cooper
Queens Park, 15 February 2000

Truth will out
Now we know! For generations Australians have built up an image overseas of being noisy party animals, but in the December issue of the Journal the esteemed editor reveals the truth when she states that "young European hoons" have "turned into solid respectable Australians". "Solid"? "Respectable"? "Australians"?

A Canadian observer
11 January 2000
(I cannot give my name for fear of retaliation by expatriate Aussies)

Wilderness or roads
I share Rick Jamieson’s concern (Feb NPJ) regarding road closures in Wollemi National Park, restricting vehicle access to numerous canyons. A similar situation exists in the proposed Grose Wilderness and concerns at least two closures:
1) The Faulconbridge Point Road is locked, necessitating a 6 km walk to the start of the Grose River walking track, the only marked access to the river between Richmond and Blackheath, costing almost three hours in a day trip which could be better spent exploring the river. This road is wide, straight, level and boring to walk.
2 ) Ridgewell Road to Baltzer Lookout and Hanging Rock. Hanging Rock has been used in brochures and postcards as being one of the most spectacular features in the Blue Mountains. If Ridgewell Road is closed, it would mean a 5 or 6 km walk and once again is straight, level and through featureless bush.
To suggest these roads be kept open may be anathema to dyed-in-the-wool wilderness supporters, but surely a sense of balance is called for.

Robert Smith
Noraville, 22 February 2000

Rick Jamieson is right.
Rick Jamieson is right. Why should I have to make a tedious walk through kilometres of boring scrub to reach a canyon when I could drive my car along one of those roads put in by the foresters and coal miners? The suggestion that the roads should be closed and allowed to revegetate is ridiculous.
Apart from the canyons and a few pagodas, the so-called Wollemi Wilderness is just a riot of useless ridges and plateaus. You can't see anything but the trees, and there's no wildlife (except that wallaby I hit).
If you ask me those foresters didn't go far enough. Roads should be pushed along every ridge and down every spur so I can get right near the first abseil of every canyon and do it as a day trip from Sydney, like Rick says. Signposts, too. How can I find a canyon if I've got to stumble through a scrubby wasteland to get there?
In this day and age the idea of walking to canyons is absurd. And as for the idea that some canyons might be so far from a road that you have to camp out to get there ... well bugger that, I say.
Rick, it's good to see you've moved into the modern age since your 1960s walking guides promoted long bushwalks. What a scandal that the NPWS ignored the protests by we car drivers and took more notice of all those outdated extremists who think the bush is some sort of special place.
Canyoning rules!

Andy Macqueen
Springwood, 26 February 2000