For Immediate Release
25th January 2010
Volunteers to Extend Fraser Island’s Great Walk
A team of 12 volunteer Aborigines and conservationists has begin work on surveying a 40
kilometre extension to the Fraser Island Great Walk.
The group is setting out to establish a new route between Lake Garawongera and Arch Cliffs
on the Hervey Bay side of the island which includes some of the island’s most spectacular
scenery including the most pristine forest.
The most ambitious walking track project yet undertaken by volunteers in Queensland aims to
honour the late George Haddock who contributed indefatigable voluntary service for Fraser
Island, National Parks and community organizations.
The survey team has the task of defining the precise route which will touch at least four of
Fraser Island’s unique perched dune lakes including
Lake Coomboo, Lake Allom and Lake
Bowarrady and will travel on a route removed from motor traffic based on gradients,
environmental values and aesthetics.
The project is being undertaken by the National Parks Association of Queensland and the
Fraser Island Defenders Organisation with the support the Butchulla people who are part of the
survey as well as Queensland Minister for Sustainability and Climate Change, Kate Jones.
Project coordinator John Sinclair said that the Minister had delegated to the volunteers the total
project including plotting the route and producing an Environmental Impact Statement and
cultural heritage assessment as well as construction of the track, signage, toilets and camping
grounds.
“Although volunteers have undertaken similar projects in Western Australia and New Zealand,
an environmental project of this scale has never previously undertaken by volunteers in
Queensland,” Mr. Sinclair said.
The project is planned to occur in several stages over the next two years and will tax the
resources of the coordinating bodies, but when finished it will double the length of the existing
Fraser Island Great Walk making it Queensland’s longest continuous walking trail.
The existing Fraser Island Great Walk is already the most popular of all of Queensland’s Great
walks but the new extension will create a long distance trail of global significance.
“The existing Great Walk is 80 kms long but the extension will make it longer than Tasmania’s
Overland Track and challenge both that and Western Australia’s Bibbulmun Track in
popularity,” Mr Sinclair said.
With the soon to be completed Cooloola Great Walk it will be possible to walk almost 200
kilometres in bushland between Noosa to Dundubara or Arch Cliffs on Fraser Island without
walking on any roads used by traffic.
“The attractiveness of the walk and the challenge it presents should encourage more people to
explore Fraser Island and Cooloola on foot instead of in 4WDs,” Mr Sinclair concluded.
For further information contact:
John Sinclair (FIDO) 0418 650 535 or Paul Donatiu
(NPAQ) 3367 0878.
NEWS 
