Community News

Member for Clarence, Chris Gulaptis, and Clarence Valley Mayor, Jim Simmons, take to the canoes during the release a map kit for the canoe and kayak trail in 2017. Image: Contributed

Council, government and industry work together on river tourism

The growing popularity of the Clarence Valley’s Canoe and Kayak Trail has brought different levels of government and private operators together to form the Clarence Valley Canoe and Kayak Cluster, headed by council’s My Clarence Valley Tourism and Economic Development team.

Clarence Valley Council acting general manager, Laura Black, said private operators, council, the National Parks and Wildlife Service and NSW Department of Industry, Crown Lands were working together to increase awareness of the trail.

“There is now a dedicated Clarence canoe and kayak site on the My Clarence Valley Tourism website, information brochures at the visitor centres and hubs, with tour operators and at accommodation centres,” she said.

“There’s also the detailed Clarence canoe and kayak trail maps previously developed with NSW Department of Industry, Crown Lands.

“Now, courtesy of Crown Land funding, there will be signposting to the launch sites and safety signposting along the route, ensuring visitors to the region will have a great experience in the Clarence hinterland and when they are on the trail.

“More and more people are using the trail, which is a great thing because it is providing a worthwhile and substantial boost to tourism in the upper parts of the Clarence.

“But we also feel it can be made more attractive through improved signage.

“We’ve started working on a project into signage that will inform paddlers of danger, camping and pickup points and to attach river trail ‘way-finding’ signs to be affixed to existing national park signage.”

Ms Black said that as part of its tourism promotion council had agreed to work with the group to develop a design solution for the markers and provide quotes for signs. Operators and guides would determine where signs should go (on river and surrounds) and install them, while national parks would provide support with road way-finding signage within their parks.