There are around one million people in NSW who like to bushwalk. One million people divided by the 22,000 carrying capacity means a 45 year wait to get on track, assuming only NSW residents can book, excluding tourists. Imagine the frustration and bad press every time bookings open. Even if we build 45 walks, then people just want to do them all, creating more frustration.

The root of all the issues is that NSW is deliberately choosing to build artificial bottlenecks on something they know will be very popular. It is like building a new six lane freeway and putting a ferry crossing over a river rather than a bridge. The system cannot grow or scale over time nor do we get the maximum value from the spend. We need to fix the bottleneck at the initial planning phase. It is far too late to have this conversation at the normal public consultation points.

What makes NSW different?NSW is fundamentally different to Tasmania and NZ and can do something much better for its citizens and parks. The core things that make NSW different include the following.

ClimateMost of NSW has a temperate climate, making it safer and more comfortable than some other places for walking year round, even for inexperienced walkers. It also means that the shelters are more about comfort than life saving facilities.

Location of green space and existing track networkIn NSW, most of the major cities are home or near to large national parks and other green areas. Iconic walks in Tasmania and NZ tend to be located in remote areas. In NSW the most logical places to have the walks are in and around our cities and regional centres. These parks still give a sense of remoteness even though they are physically close to townships. This also means that NSW can leverage off community-based facilities for walks such as picnic areas, toilets, swimming

areas, accommodation, caravan parks and cafes. Some of NSW's most popular multi-day walks are cross tenure, mixing walking on state forests, national park and private land.

Trackhead accessNSW has incredible public transport networks. It means iconic walks can start and end at train stations or ferry terminals. Also, side trips can join walks to public transport nodes, allowing you to break very long walks into weekend journeys.

A better model – inn-to-inn walkingThere is a much better accommodation model for NSW and it is better on almost every metric. It is better for walkers, the environment, for regional economies, faster and cheaper to implement, can be rolled out across many areas of the state and is highly scalable. It is also popular in Europe and in the USA.

The idea of inn-to-inn walking is simple, walk on-park during the day and stay overnight off-park, in regional communities. The inns will vary and may be a pub, hotel, caravan park, hostel, hosted tent campsite, people's homes, tree houses or micro homes.

The risks to visitor experience using the wrong modelThe mismatch in the context of the model will lead to poor visitor experiences. On-park accommodation in Tasmania and NZ are used in remote areas. Using this same model in day walk areas leads to notable visitor experience dissonance. Trying to emulate the Tasmanian experience in a NSW day walk area will lead to comments like "the walk was okay, but no Overland Track". Rather, we should be aiming for "It is like our very own Camino de Santiago." The model must match the landscape helping set the visitor expectations.

Mixing with day visitorsThe walks earmarked for iconic walks in NSW have very frequent interactions with day visitors. Visitors are trying to hold in their mind the idea of a very remote getaway, but the reality is frequent interactions with other visitors on short walks, roads and carparks. Such interactions make intuitive sense in the European off-park accommodation model.

Artificial walk durationWhen walking in a remote area the length of the walk is naturally the distance between

trackheads. The NSW proposed walks have frequent passing of trackheads and access points, yet the promotion and booking system will enforce a set number of days like the Great Southern Walk, four nights. For some users, doing the walk as a series of weekend trips would be more optimal, but the booking system for on-park accommodation will not allow this and visitors will be forced to walk at the pace and rhythm set by NPWS. With off-park accommodation models there is no such pressure giving visitors the opportunity to walk at their own pace and time frames.

Why not run both models on each track?On the surface there is a reasonable sounding argument that we can run both models in parallel. We could have government provided accommodation on-park and let people organise their own if they want. Parks can set up accommodation and other providers can set up competition to them. But wait, what? Why should the government be setting up a service to compete with already struggling regions?

The goal should be about maximising the visitor experience in a way that also maximises the benefit to our communities, with the best return on investment for the government and the local communities. Governments should be plugging the gaps that industry cannot fill whilst encouraging local business to do what they do best.

If there is a gap such as a long section of track through a national park where there are no reasonable options for off-park accommodation, then and only then look to fill the gap with on-park accommodation that will not create bottlenecks.

If NSW adopt on-park accommodation then NPWS will aim to maximise their own income, making walks more expensive and less accessible. They will have a government funded virtual monopoly that will inevitably come with all the standard issues of any artificial monopoly. This sounds harsh, but it is already happening.

Monopoly thinking already in actionWe can already see the negative impact that the focus of this on-park accommodation model is having on bushwalking in NSW. Here are two recent examples and the state has not even started to build these iconic walks yet.

Remote campsites earmarked for removal

the walking experience worse for those on a lower budget. Instead of this, formalising these remote campsites would have improved lower budget access and provided toilet breaks for the five million Australians with some form of incontinence, making the hut-based walk more inclusive.

Very high prices and exclusive use

Project benefit review

Although many of the basic earmarked routes will probably still work with an off-park accommodation model, the projects need to be reviewed with fresh eyes. Namely, starting with the focus on park protection, visitor experience and maximum community benefit front of mind in a land tenure neutral way.

Review of budget requirements

Budgets are often a killer for change like this. Sometimes money is specifically earmarked for building infrastructure, even though being spent in another way may offer a better return on the overall investment.

Earliest possible consultation

To date, all the NPWS public consultations on iconic walks have occurred after the walk proposal is very detailed. This means that any feedback from the community on the basic route or core issues are routinely ignored leading to conflict between the plan and the community subject matter experts (SMEs). Walk ideas can be rapidly improved in the early prototyping phase when SMEs and parks staff can bounce ideas around. This also broadens knowledge bases and improves the level of general community support and ultimately the quality of the overall walking experiences.

Multi-tenure, multi-agency and community group approach