little towns doing it hard
Submitted: Thursday, Jul 24, 2014 at 20:20
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Slow one
Well this just blows me away. We pulled into
Morven east of
Charleville to a great little locals
campground a short walk from town situated, around the local footy oval.
Very clean
toilets and showers, 12 powered sites with road base and at least 30 local roos that approve of the grass on the oval.
All of this for the donation of the exorbitant price of $5. Now get a load of this.
Went to the
post office and had a cup of coffee, at which time the lady there said the council workers collect the donations every week and when tallied against the number of vans, camper trailers and mobile homes, only 25% of people pay.
These areas are doing it real tough due to drought, cattle prices and wild dogs. I just can't believe that this percentage of Australians have become this low. I wonder how long this
camp ground will remain open.
There is a lot of feed being trucked in so property owners can keep their breeding stock and much of this is coming from the buy a bale program. These people will have no income for at least 2 to 3 years if all goes ok and the surrounding towns will suffer just as badly. Here is the donation site
Buy a bale
I don't have any affiliation with the buy a bale program but I do donate as I have been through this heartbreak.
If people get a cheap site or
camp please buy a little in the town even if it is only a couple of drinks.
Reply By: Member - John and Val - Friday, Jul 25, 2014 at 13:33
Friday, Jul 25, 2014 at 13:33
My take on the main point made in this post was this bit: "Went to the
post office and had a cup of coffee, at which time the lady there said the council workers collect the donations every week and when tallied against the number of vans, camper trailers and mobile homes, only 25% of people pay."
If that is even half correct then that is a disgrace. Sure, buy a beer, a pie or whatever but if we use facilities surely its reasonable to pay for them - especially if said facilities are clean and
well maintained.
Having said that, we have encountered situations where even with the best will in the world we have not been able to pay such donations because the arrangements for doing so just don't work. In those cases a bit more thought/research might make a significant difference. Some examples: go to a particular place (residence or
shop) to pay, you find said place but no-one is there to take your payment. Or the price is such (eg $6.60 each) that you have to use at least some coins to pay and the slot into the receptacle for the fees wont accept coin. Sorting out those little obstacles and others like them just could be worthwhile.
But mostly its fairly straightforward to pay, so why are so many not doing so?
Cheers,
Val
| J and V
"Not everything that can be counted counts, and not everything that counts can be counted."
- Albert Einstein
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Follow Up By: Slow one - Friday, Jul 25, 2014 at 18:58
Friday, Jul 25, 2014 at 18:58
J&V,
I can only relate what was told to me and if you look on wikicamps a similar plea was made for people to pay.
I said why don't you do a registration thing where people display it on their windscreen, answer was it is a donation because we can't charge a fee due to us not competing with caravan parks. Nearest van park is 90k away, go figure that.
On the hard to pay side, it is only about a 250m walk to get change from the pub, store or
post office so there is no reason not to pay.
I see a few blamed $100,000 vans for not paying but this is not the case, there was a mix of new (i1/2 the $100000 mark, converted buses, camper trailers and new to old mobile homes.
FollowupID:
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Follow Up By: Member - John and Val - Saturday, Jul 26, 2014 at 07:57
Saturday, Jul 26, 2014 at 07:57
Not suggesting an excuse for not paying Slow One.
We've encountered coin-in-the-slot boxes with the slot too small to accept the larger coins. Not uncommon at little roadside fruit and veg stalls.
Anything like that that makes it less easy to pay what's owed reduces the likelihood of payment.
Cheers
John | J and V
"Not everything that can be counted counts, and not everything that counts can be counted."
- Albert Einstein
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Follow Up By: Les PK Ranger - Saturday, Jul 26, 2014 at 08:40
Saturday, Jul 26, 2014 at 08:40
Easy to do the '
camp fees paid' display for the windscreen.
Several 4WD properties here in SA use coloured stick on dots (fluro colours, yellow, red, etc) which are placed in say top left corner of windscreen.
Very obvious then who has / who has not paid, and easy / cheap to implement (no printing etc).
FollowupID:
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Reply By: Member - blackbird1937 - Friday, Jul 25, 2014 at 14:24
Friday, Jul 25, 2014 at 14:24
Hello All. When I was at Duaringa and
Cracow in Qld two years ago I saw people with very late big outfits not putting donations in for the camping! Late last year at Murphy's Haystacks in SA I saw people walk past the donation tin at the
gate without even putting 50 cents in. When these
places are closed down they will be the first to complain! It is disgusting that some people can be so tight! At the Gas Plant near 40 Mile Beach for every donation for water the Gas Plant double the money for the Flying Doctors, a great idea. At
Karratha Info centre you have to pay for water. $1 for 50 litres.
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Follow Up By: Member - Scott M (NSW) - Friday, Jul 25, 2014 at 16:05
Friday, Jul 25, 2014 at 16:05
Agree - camped out the back of quite a few pubs - the usual fee for using the showers is a donation to the RFDS. More than happy to double what is asked and quite often have meal and a few beers in the establishment.
Seen a number of people wander in and ask the question to which they respond "can't be bothered" ..... how cheap & nasty can you get???
Having said that the majority are more than happy to donate.
FollowupID:
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Reply By: Les PK Ranger - Saturday, Jul 26, 2014 at 08:45
Saturday, Jul 26, 2014 at 08:45
Farina is a another great private property
camp site in SA, between
Lyndhurst and
Marree.
You can access the old township and the great
ruins / stories there for free (worth a couple of hours), but hard to go past the great camping with basic
toilets etc just over the creek.
Only $5 a night per VEHICLE, wonder if many are too tight to pay for camping on the bowling green like grass there ?
I must ask the owners next time I'm there, but you hardly see them, they just drive by sometimes in their travels.
AnswerID:
536618
Reply By: Alloy c/t - Sunday, Jul 27, 2014 at 10:07
Sunday, Jul 27, 2014 at 10:07
See it constantly , pull in to the unmanned council van park just before or on 4pm when the towns admin office 300 mtrs up the road is shutting for the day , pack up and leave before office opens at 9 am , honesty box ?? Never so much as $1 ever been put in it , ,,
Wander to the pub , buy A beer [ never 2 or 3 ] peruse the menu , decide all to dear [$13 for steak / chips+ salad ] ,, maybe go to the one and only
shop , whinge about the price of the 2lt bottle of millk [ ohh how can it cost $4.20 when we only pay $2 at Woollies at
home] ,, pull up at the fuel bowsers - see the price and move the vehicle away and then proceed to fill the vehicles tank from jerry cans [ I kid you not ] , have wife look around for
water tap and hose so she can fill the water tanks while hubby is doing the jerry cans ,,, and people wonder WHY we call them terrorists instead of tourists …...
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