6 August 2020

The WA Government today unveiled a $57.7 million package for the Great Southern as part of the WA Recovery Plan, firmly placing trails and outdoor recreation in focus for future development.

Aside from helping to get more people outdoors and active in our beautiful local environment, GSCORE welcomes the potential economic boost through jobs and tourism. “The nominated work and upgrades will go a long way to encouraging even more people to get outdoors in the Great Southern and take advantage of the amazing environment we have,” says GSCORE Executive Director Dr Lenore Lyons. “This also means more choices for people of all ages to be out in nature walking, hiking, cycling, exploring and generally being active”.

These projects will create short terms jobs in trail development and long term jobs in tourism. The better facilities we create, the better opportunities we have to attract visitors to the Great Southern and that can only help our economic recovery.

We’re delighted to see funding directed to several projects identified in the Great Southern Regional Trails Master Plan – watch this space!

The tourism and infrastructure investment in the package specifically related to trails and outdoor recreation are:
• $12.78 million: Establish trail towns and centres to service existing and new trails in the Great Southern region including the realignment of Munda Biddi Trail through William Bay National Park to Denmark, new trails in the Valley of the Giants to Walpole, new and upgraded trails in Torndirrup National Park and new and upgraded trails at Castle Rock in the Porongurup National Park.
• $2.24 million: Renew walk and cycle trails to encourage people to visit parks in the Great Southern region, including existing trails in the Torndirrup, Porongurup, Walpole-Nornalup and Mount Frankland national parks.
• $1.19 million: Upgrades on the Bibbulmun Track and Munda Biddi Trail including renewing camp sites, bridges and sections of the track.
• $1.56 million: New and upgraded visitor facilities in national parks across the Great Southern region, including resealing Coalmine Beach Road in the Walpole-Nornalup National Park, an overflow car park at the Granite Skywalk at Castle Rock in the Porongurup National Park, and a new toilet at Ledge Beach in Gull Rock National Park.

At GSCORE we’re looking forward to working with our regional partners to help make these projects a success. Working together we can take further steps towards creating greater economic and tourism opportunities for the Great Southern in trails and outdoor recreation. For more information, read our media release, here.