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Hi Birders,
I was interested to hear Terry Pacey's comments
about the access to private lands but I think he is off the "pace"! Here on the
Central Coast if there is an interesting bird on private land, I naturally would
ask permission to go on that land, and avoid going on the land if I knew that
the owner was unco-operative. But when travelling in the Western Division of NSW
(which is outside of the agricultural lands) I have a more radical view. That is
because the properties could be 300000-400000 ha in extent, the owner may
actually own or lease 2 or 3 such properties and does not live on any! Trying to
find who the "owner" is well nigh impossible. While you are travelling you
have no idea where the homestead is located, and in many places the name of the
property is not shown anywhere (for security reasons?) so it is difficult to
determine who "owns" the land and so seek permission to enter.
Furthermore on many of the main roads, the route
follows a Travelling Stock Reserve (TSR), particularly obvious where there are
the Public Watering Places (PWP) along the route. The TSR could be 500 m or more
wide, often less. Often TSRs are not fenced. So that providing you are parked
near the edge of an unfenced road, you could walk in a few hundred yards
and still be on a TSR ie not on private property as such. So until told
otherwise by an owner, that is the practise I follow. If you visit an area in
western NSW regularly it is worth gettting a map which shows the location of
TSRs because many property owners don't indicate where the TSR ends and their
land begins. I assume that there are TSRs in Qld & South Australia?
If the Qld & SA Governments were really
interested in Tourism, I would have thought that they might provide limited
access to the grazing leases! Currently Tourism is more valauble to the State
than rents from pastoralists!
Alan Morris
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