By now most serious desert travellers are aware of the Martu Native Title Determined Area. This is the area that has caused a bit of a fuss over the last few years for those wanting to travel the very
well known
Canning Stock Route and visit other sites of interest such as
Calvert Range. Currently for travelling the CSR between
Well 15 &
Well 40 a permit is required which is available over the internet for a fee. That’s good news for Canning travellers. However the news is not so good for those travelling the other famous desert roads, such as Len Beadell’s network and the “Oil Roads” within these Determined Areas.
In a nutshell a Native Title Determined Area is country given/handed back to the original occupants. Quite simply these Determined Areas are similar to freehold the same as your house,
farm or business premises.
Again in a nutshell, there is a clause in the Determined Area fine print which allows travel on or through Public Access areas. For desert travellers that means the major roads, (but only those made public prior to 1993 I believe.) Faint tracks & seismic lines do not fall under this Public Access category. As an example, Len Beadell’s Callawa Track has been deregistered as a road. No longer is it public access.
News Flash;
If you wish to deviate off any of those major roads by more than say 50 metres then you will need a permit from the people responsible for that particular Determined Area.
This may be old news to some but please read the rest of this short article.
The easiest way to grasp what I’m getting at is to get a copy of the latest Hema Great Desert Tracks North West & South West maps, 5th edition. Open them up and have a good look at the Determined Areas represented on those two maps. (You may not be aware that the entire length of the Canning is now within Determined Areas and more than that as
well). Now anywhere within those areas you will need a permit to leave the road if you wish to comply with the law.
Connie Beadell & I run a small tag-a-long business that of course specialises in the western deserts. This year to comply with the rules we applied for permission to visit
Warri Site & Ngarinarri Claypan off the
Eagle Highway. We were refused permission to go to either place. Another permit to visit Veevers Crater &
Patience Well off the Gary Highway was also lodged. This resulted in a response asking us to “defer our trip” as the people responsible for that area have not yet formulated a policy for travellers wanting to visit these sites.
I am not trying to lay blame or put people offside. What I am trying to do is make folk aware that access to
places of interest that have been visited by travellers for decades in these new Determined Areas is now illegal without permission, which appears to be pretty hard to obtain going through the correct channels.
Have a long hard think about this issue. If you have wanted to see these
places you may have left your trip a little late.
Mick Hutton, Beadell Tours