By Jeremy Cook
Ongoing complaints about the management of Condamine River Road have resurfaced after another long weekend of what one property owner described as “wall to wall” traffic.
Resident Melani Caldwell said long weekends typically attracted a flood of four wheel drivers to the area, located within Condamine Gorge, and even more so when it rains.
“There’s more traffic in here when it rains then when it doesn’t and over Easter the roads were flooded in and people were coming through,” Ms Caldwell said.
“We didn’t go through it because we could see that the river was too high and people were still coming with caravans in tow through flooded river.”
Management of Condamine River Road has proven controversial in the past with residents and property owners often complaining about a number of issues such as traffic, its promotion as a four wheel drive destination, and the recent concreting of river crossings.
Photos sent to Warwick Stanthorpe Today after the Easter long weekend showed deep tyre marks and potholes dotted in places along the mostly dirt road.
Property owner Coralie Endean, whose farm borders the public road, said she was concerned at the level of maintenance required after weekends when four wheel drive traffic was at its worst.
“It’s really awful, especially on weekends. It literally is wall to wall four wheel drives at times,” Ms Endean said.
“I’m not necessarily against four wheel drives … but if you watch the four wheel drive websites they actually advertise it when the road’s closed, because they want the enjoyment of rushing through that water,” she said.
“I’m really worried personally that as ratepayers, we’re paying all this money to get that road done up every time there’s a long weekend.”
Although Southern Downs Regional Council no longer promotes the road as a four wheel drive destination, the state’s own tourism agency, Tourism and Events Queensland, has it listed online as one of “Queensland’s best 4WD tracks”.
Killarney Police Sergeant Bradley Doyle said police regularly received complaints from landowners about the behaviour of drivers in the gorge.
“The main complaint is [the] manner of driving or ‘hooning’,” Sergeant Doyle said.
Sergeant Doyle said complaints were generally focused on motorists who deliberately drive too fast through crossings, leave the road to drive through mud and onto private property, purposely spin wheels to lose tyre traction in dirt, and enter the gorge when the road’s closed and flooded.
He said speed limits, displayed on signs located at the gorge entrance closest to Killarney and at the road’s 14 river crossings, were advisory only and not enforceable.
“As the road is dirt, SDRC continue with their policy of not placing a speed limit on dirt sections of road, rather requiring drivers [to] drive to the conditions,” Sergeant Doyle said.
“Rain, erosion and water damage along with the vehicle being used, can quickly change the safe operating speeds on dirt roads,” he said.
“People, on seeing a speed limit sign, will often drive to the limit, even though conditions may have changed and the limit is no longer safe to drive on.”
The council does not install speed limits on rural gravel roads as “conditions on these roads can change rapidly and any posted speed limit may then become inappropriate for the new conditions,” a council spokeswoman told this masthead in January.
Ms Endean said she no longer visits her farm on weekends because of the traffic, choosing instead to stay at her other property in Stanthorpe.
“We’ve had cattle killed on that road by four wheel drives coming through quickly,” she said.
“It’s horrible, it’s really not pleasant at all.
Council crews are reported to have since repaired the road following the Easter long weekend. But Ms Caldwell said the road was constantly in need of repair because of how it has been promoted.
“It happens every time,” she said.
