What’s Going On With Wangetti? | The latest update on the 94km adventure trail in Tropical North Queensland


*Updated on 18 Aug, 2022 with new information from the trail building subcontractor. 

A change in the Wangetti Trail’s route has many worried that what the Queensland State Government delivers could be vastly different to what was proposed in 2018.

The Wangetti Trail started as an idea for an epic 94km multi-use trail for hikers and mountain bikers from Palm Cove to Port Douglas, complete with camping spots to make it a multi-day experience. Originally dreamt up by Glen Jacobs, when the project was officially launched, now retired Queensland Tourism Minister Kate Jones said, “The Wangetti Trail will rival anything that Tasmania has when it comes to ecotourism.”

“We think that the Wangetti Trail will rival anything in Australia.”

According to the original timeline, a portion of the trail should have been open to hikers and bikers, with the remainder progressively being opened as it was completed. A few years on, not a single kilometre of the trail has been built, and the Mowbray River pedestrian bridge that was supposed to be the launch pad for the project doesn’t currently connect both sides of the river.

The Wangetti Trail was originally proposed to run through this epic terrain, and parts of the 94km trail were supposed to be operational by now.

The new trail alignment

According to reporting by the ABC, the Douglas Shire Council voted to withdraw support for a section of the project, because the alignment had been changed from running through mangroves and along the beach, to following the back of a housing estate using footpaths and residential streets.

The section in question was a 2.5 km ‘Mangrove experience’ boardwalk and 4km of singletrack connecting to Four Mile Beach. According to the council’s report ‘Wangetti Trail – Asset Ownership‘, the new plan proposed by the state is a 395m boardwalk and 4.2km of trail, “using TMR road reserve, Council roads and a significant portion over freehold land. The track is proposed to link into the end of Mitre Street with users walking along footpaths and roads to Four Mile Beach into Port Douglas.”

One of the only updates we’ve had about the Wangetti Trail since October of last year is an update about a section of the trail being realigned to follow roads and sidewalks and run behind an area proposed to become a housing estate.

Douglas Shire Mayor Michael Kerr told the Cairns Post, “The department’s current proposal is disappointing and very different to what Council supported three years ago.

While Council supports the Wangetti Trail as a regional tourism attraction, the current economic climate, lack of construction work done, and the much-reduced length and quality of the current trail proposal puts us in a difficult position,” he said.

Council has found it necessary to advise the State that it will not accept asset ownership for any construction related to the Mowbray North Section of the Wangetti Trail

Simply put, the State changed a portion of the route that will impact the riding and hiking experience, and the Douglas Shire Council doesn’t want to be stuck with it. According to the council’s report, it had proposed the old Mowbray bridge be repurposed, but a new bridge was built instead, with no input from the council. The report also notes that the depreciation costs of the assets the state wants the council to take ownership of have jumped from $64,000 per year to $343,000 per year — an increase of 435 per cent. In the original plan, maintenance was funded through commercial permits. However, according to the Asset Ownership report, no permits have been issued — likely because nothing has been built. So the council is essentially telling the state, ‘build what was previously agreed upon, or you can keep your trail.’

After 94km, the Wangetti Trail will finish on the sand of Four Mile Beach in Port Douglas. It seems you may get there a different way than what was initially proposed.

A council spokesperson told Flow, “Douglas Shire Council remains highly supportive of the Wangetti Trail and is committed to cooperating with the State to realising the delivery of the (Wangetti) Trail as a world class tourism product for Far North Queensland. This support and our partnership with the State is reflected in our Council’s Operation Plan for 2022/23 and is a key to the delivery of adventure tourism within our Shire.

Council has found it necessary to advise the state that it will not accept asset ownership for any construction related to the Mowbray North Section of the Wangetti Trail. This decision has been made due to the lengthy delay in delivering what was to be a “fast-tracked” portion of the Trail delivering a standalone tourism product for the Port Douglas area and the deficiencies in the proposed trail product.”

The Asset Ownership Report also notes that the Cairns Regional Council are not taking on ownership of any assets relating to the Wangetti Trail. While councillors like Brett Olds, whose division includes the southern starting point of the Wangetti Trail, have gone on the record with the same sentiment to build what was agreed upon, the relationship to the project is a little different.

The Cairns Regional Council did not respond to Flow’s request for comment.

Flow also reached out to Enviroedge, the subcontractor Wangers CFT has tapped to bring mountain bike trail building knowledge to the party. Enviroedge did reply to our request for comment. But unfortunately, higher-ups advised that they couldn’t speak on the record at this time.

The state government is keeping a pretty tight lid on details about the Wangetti Trail.

Why has the route changed?

Flow asked Douglas Shire Council why the trail alignment had changed significantly.

“This is a question for the State to answer. The proposed trail is not concrete, although significant portions of street and road reserve are proposed, and the latest route would run behind an approved housing development. A significant proportion of mangrove boardwalk has been removed from the original proposal, of which the council are very disappointed,” said a council spokesperson.

This is the most up-to-date map on the Queensland DTIS website.

According to the Wangetti Trail project website, the most up-to-date trail alignment is the overview map, which has not been updated since July 2020. The spokesperson from the Douglas Shire Council told Flow that councillors and council staff have viewed alternatives to the original proposed route, but those maps have not been made publicly available, and it was not at liberty to share them. We posed the same question to the Cairns Regional Council and have not received a reply.

Our understanding was that the Mowbray North section of the Trail was to be a fast-tracked, standalone product however that has not eventuated

We also asked the Queensland DTIS about these trail realignments. Specifically, we asked why the alignments are being changed, how many changes have been made, and if the DTIS could share more up-to-date or detailed maps.

As part of an extended statement, a department spokesperson said, “The 1.5m wide shared use typology for the Wangetti Trail requires significantly different infrastructure than that required for either a dedicated walking or mountain bike trail. This is to account for sufficient width for safety (sic) of all users – particularly on switchbacks – and increased retaining infrastructure required to stabilise the trail in the highly dynamic Wet Tropics World Heritage area which has an annual average rainfall of 2010mm – 80% of which is concentrated in the summer wet season. The detailed design undertaken over the last 18 months has further developed the early concept work completed in 2018 into for-construction drawings, management plans, construction methodologies and accompanying work method statements. Final consideration of the detailed design and construction management package is now with the Queensland Parks and Wildlife Service for construction approval.”

We managed to turn up this map, which was uploaded in February 2020 on an archived version of a community feedback page that provides a bit more detail. Still, this map is more than two years old, and we’d love to see the most up-to-date version.

Since we first reported on the award of the design and construct tender, there have been almost no updates on the trail’s progress or what’s happening. Queensland Ecotourism Trails, which is run by the Queensland DTIS, has not posted on social media since October 20, 2021, and the last email newsletter we received was in July 2021.

With the updates to the public going dark, it seems the state government hasn’t been any more forthcoming with its partners in the project. The Douglas Shire Council Spokesperson confirmed that no on-ground work has occurred, and they were not privy to the source of the delays.

“Again that is a matter for the State to answer. Our understanding was that the Mowbray North section of the Trail was to be a fast-tracked, standalone product however that has not eventuated,” the council spokesperson said.

“We understand that works for a part of the Trail between Palm Cove, and Ellis Beach is planned to be constructed, but the State is best able to provide a construction timeline,” they continued.

The Cairns Post reported back in April, that the Cairns Regional Council approved the development of the first 12km between Ellis Beach and Palm Cove. As far as we can tell, no dirt has been moved yet.

Since we first published this story, Enviroedge has posted a job ad looking for trail builders, machine operators and more in Cairns and Townsville. This could be a sign that work is starting soon.

Covid has wreaked havoc on pretty much any plans made over the past two years, and the Wangetti Trail has not been insulated from its reach.

We asked the DTIS if they could detail the cause of the delays, and the department spokesperson pointed to Coivd as the source.

“During this time, the Queensland Government was unable to meaningfully advance critical Indigenous Land Use Agreement negotiations with Traditional Owners due to the need to protect vulnerable communities including Biosecurity Act restrictions on access and was further constrained with advancing other market focussed elements of the project. Detailed design and environmental assessment activities were prioritised and advanced through all levels of Government to secure construction approvals evolved from the concept work proposed by the local councils in 2018,” the department spokesperson said.

This is not the only case of Covid putting the brakes on these types of negotiations, with the Red Centre Adventure Ride undergoing the similar delays. But in the background, the project team has been moving ahead, compiling the work needed for the construction approvals and the like.

And there is a lot of work on that front as the Wangetti Trail is proposed to run through World Heritage Area rainforest, which comes with a ball of red tape the size of the Sydney Opera House, but there has been some movement.

Despite everything the Wangetti Trail has faced, some progress has been made. But it seems the state government just forgot to tell anyone.

“For the Wangetti Trail, the Commonwealth Government has completed its assessment of the Wangetti South detailed designs and ecological management plans, and on 3 June 2022 gave approval for the controlled action (construction) to be undertaken. This milestone was the result of two and half (sic) years of seasonal ecological survey data collection, assessment and approval of impacts on the Wet Tropics World Heritage Area and assessment of cultural heritage values with Traditional Owners,” a department spokesperson told Flow.

The DTIS did not answer our question regarding when we expect to see work commence.

Why is this important?

The Wangetti Trail is a massive project for Tropical North Queensland, to the order of more than 40 million dollars from the Queensland State Government. It was enough to warrant a mention in the most recent Parliamentary Estimates Hearings, where the Minister for Tourism and the DTIS Director General responded to questions related to Wangetti (ed’s note: pages 93, 97 and 117).

The goal of this project is to attract folks so they will spend money in the region and stimulate the local economy. Done right, mountain bike destinations can generate millions of dollars of revenue yearly. But if the Wangetti Trail is a +40-million dollar flop, it will be hard to convince the state government to take more risks on mountain biking projects in the future. Matt Harrington, Senior Project Manager of the Warburton MTB Destination, who helped us decode the DTIS’s cryptic answers last time around, expressed this sentiment when we first wrote about the Wangetti Trail.

There are still a lot of questions left unanswered about the Wangetti Trail, but we remain hopeful the state government will have some good news for us soon.

“My concern would be if it failed to deliver on its promise (on the experience and the economic outcomes), that governments will see a potential failure of an investment like this and decided not to invest at all in the future,” he said.

This could be a big ol’ nothing burger and simply a case of the Douglas Shire Council playing politics and using the media to achieve that goal, and all of this hubbub could be isolated to that 7km section of trail. But it also might not be; we can only speculate.

We asked the DTIS directly if this was the only re-route and why changes had been made, and the responses provided did not answer either question. The reasons for this could range from not wanting to pre-empt the QPWS approval, to it being a totally different trail that’s been re-routed to run-down backstreets and behind housing developments the whole way. The DTIS is also running a pretty tight ship in terms of its messaging surrounding this project, so unfortunately, we won’t know until it’s ready to tell us.

For the time being, all we have to go on is an overview map, and a bridge that doesn’t actually go anywhere.

The Wangetti Trail will still run from Palm Cove to Four Mile Beach. We’re not sure how closely it will follow the route laid out in the latest maps available to the public.

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