Wilderness is shrinking under population and developement pressures

You are right Bob. Diesel 4x4's are common place and reasonably inexpensive these days. The country and the world are a whole lot smaller. What was once considered a major outback treck seems positively pedestrian these days. Imagine the Strzlecki bitumenised! Who'd have thought. The outback is still out there it's just getting harder to find and if you want to get away from it all, you really have to do some hard yards. Funny that the Canning is like Bourke Street and yet the side tracks to Helena and other features are all but disappearing due to lack of use. Work that out!

Still plenty out there mate.

Cheers Mick

We have just come back from the midwest in WA - found the back corners of the pastoral stations to be fairly remote (didn't see anyone else for a few days at least...).

The less 'glamorous' treks are definitely going by the wayside - the trend I've seen is for people to do the big, well known treks but not look into areas themselves.

We're looking to spend some more time in some of the conservation parks through that area next time we're back there in a few years (e.g. Pimbee, the un-named one south of Mt Augustus). There doesn't seem to be much in the way of serious 4Wing required (most access is along dis-used station tracks after they were converted from pastoral leases) but there sure ain't many people visiting them! Nothing particulary spectacular, but some very nice, outback country through there.

Best places I've been in the wilderness have been on foot - SW corner of Tassie, Tin Range on Stewart Island (NZ) and Olivine Wilderness (NZ again). Done some great remote exploring by myself through there. Hard to beat that kind of solitude! Looking forward to sharing these with my kids when they're older.

And to all those who love the bush but have a knee jerk anti green reflex, isn't this the problem? We need to keep wilderness areas as wilderness, even if it means restricting our access to these areas. Only by preserving wilderness areas as wilderness areas can we maintain the biodiversity on which life ultimately depends and also preserve all those things that we enjoy when we go bush. There are now just too many of us and our technology means we can go anywhere.
Good luck Bob in hoping that your grandchildren will see wilderness overseas. Which country would you suggest still has more wilderness than Australia? One of the great things about Oz is that we still have wilderness where very few other countries have more than token amounts., but we need to value it and preserve it, not just exploit it as a playground.

We have to work within whatever situation we find ourselves Bob.
One way to win is to use sites like this to maximize there knowledge of areas.

I think last week I was talking about spending a whole day driving only an hour from melbourne without seeing another car , but australia is in disaster territory with the addition of 400,000 new people last year.

Instead of population control we have recently had politicans encouraging the birth rate.

However beyond that the massive press for unnesscary resources is the basic problem.

The classic issue that drives so much of this is the seemingly simple issue of just eating less meat.

A change like this can do more than any other thing an individual can do.

This is because water is a basic driver and growing the equivalent amount of protein with crops uses only about 1/10 the water than clearing the land to grow crops to feed to animals which are then inefficently turned into protein.

THis situation is know at least recognized worldwide, but like gobal warming , will take a long time to seep thru and so many of us will only see these issues in there rear view mirror.

Australia is seen overseas as a very desirable and affordable destination, look at the number of Wicked, Juicy and Britz hire vehicles you see everywhere including the Gibb River Road, these places were once considered "off the beaten track" but not any more.
I have just done a winter trip bush camping along the Murray River and up thru the Flinders Ranges and was surprised at the number of others doing the same thing.
I have only one thing to say to all these people, "STAY HOME".

Rob.

Yeah young Bob

By the time your grandkids get to their travelling stage the world may have 10,000,000 souls floating around this mortal coil and Australia more than there are here now. (22 million Ozzies +1million illegals + 1million tourists)

Safe travel throughout remote Australia as advocated by this site and others attract many visitors from overseas. Development of the country will see bitumising of many erstwhile iconic roads. Thats progress whether you like it or not.

Best thing is to enjoy your time here and not to worry about something you have no control over :-)

Bob,

Are you not part of the problem that you describe? Why don't you lead by example and stay home?

I started going bush in my army boots in 1977. I reckon things are totally-alien different now.

now-a-days paying premium and pulling up with a 150K+ kit is the only way to get a country-smile...oh, and now-a-days it's always someone's else's back yard...

councils & insurence compaies should lighten up. the average wealthy two income family have no-where to holiday, over-booked destinations is a most common experience.