This Saturday is Challenge the Mountain; ride, run, walk up Mount Archer.
What about surf it!
Tree surfing technically. In Victoria’s Mornington Peninsula is an amusement park called Enchanted Adventure Garden. It claims to be the Home of Tree Surfing.
A visit of their web site shows how challenging and fun it is.
Can Mt. Archer have one too?
Being a national park makes it difficult. Hopefully not impossible. The Councils Mount Archer Activation Master Plan does include the possibility of adventure based tourism, with Tree Towering Adventures being a possible outcome. How can we expedite the project?
Private enterprise involvement is recognised as likely to be needed. Though I imagine there would an onerous number of environmental hurdles to jump over, let alone the daunting targets a business plan would project for the number of paying participants required each year to keep the project viable.
Could the State Government Department of Health be the major funder of the project?
After all its purpose is to provide a range of services aimed at achieving good health and well-being for all Queenslanders. Would not an adventure park aid in achieving good health and well-being; in a region identified to have higher than the state average number of overweight residents.
The pay-off for the Health Department would not only be the entry fees but also less Queenslanders needing treatment for physical inactivity, obesity and stress related diseases and illnesses. Not only does this help the state government coffers, but they also get their share of GST on the entry price and more jobs are created.
Then there’s the liveability enhancement of Rockhampton, it may attract people from the south-east corner or dissuade re-locating there, reducing its congestion costs.
A business plan taking into account all these outcomes should be much more attractive than a private enterprise one.
You could argue the cost of the park taken out of the Health Department $16.6 billion yearly budget would mean other services would have to miss out. Would the cost be missed, assuming overall spending was kept within budget. And wouldn’t the adventure park be a great publicity vehicle for the Department in promoting prevention is better than treatment.
There’s going to be a state election within 9 months. If we really are keen for an Enchanted Adventure Garden alternative in Rockhampton let’s look at all alternatives of making it a reality quickly, not dismissing any just because they are unorthodox, and making the building of it an election issue.