Hi,
I have a question about the legality of overnight camping beside the road in the outback.
This question is the result of a nasty experience in western Queensland in June 2010. I am travelling again soon, so the issue has come back to my mind.
Our party of 2 vehicles with camper trailers pulled about 100m off the road at dusk to
camp for the night. This was across the road from a roadside
clearing and shelter bearing a sign: "Picnic Area". In this
picnic area were 2 vehicles setting up a swag
camp for the night. We set up over the road so as not to intrude on the "personal space" of the other campers.
About 30 minutes later, a man appeared at
our camp (dinner half-cooked!) and immediately began an extremely abusive tirade to the effect that we were on private property and had to move on. he then approached the other campers in the
picnic area over the road and similarly abused them. We all moved off without argument. I would have thought that the "Picnic Area" would not have been private property, but non-one was interested in staying anyway after the unpleasant interaction with this man. He was quite sinister, and this did not bode
well for a good night's sleep!
On moving up the road a bit we stopped to chat to the other campers. It turned out that one of them was a Police Officer based about 300km away. Nonetheless, he knew of this landowner and his widespread reputation for anti-social behaviour and worse.
Of course we had no desire to
camp anywhere near his land so we travelled 100km further on to a reserve beside
Cooper Creek.
I realise that even in the absence of fences, there is most likely private property adjacent to most roads. However I assume that there is a gazetted width of land either side of the road that makes part of the legal road reserve.
So my question is this:
Is it legal to
camp in this area beside the road, before private property begins?
Thanks,
Peter C