Campground to cater for adventure
An abseiling course, large and small campsites, a nature trail, canoe classes and a waterslide are among Go Wild Adventure Tours director Adam Mackay's plans for a new campsite on the upper Ord River.
Maxwell Camp is tucked between a conglomerate cliff face and the area where the Ord River diverges into Maxwell Creek and forms part of Mr Mackay's 9ha lease.
The Shire of Wyndham-East Kimberley approved Mr Mackay's lease for the adventure campsite area in April 2013 but he has only recently begun clearing a space for what is hoped to become an "activity-based" campground.
"My interest is school groups, adventure buses and team building, to have an activity-based campground where people can hire canoes, abseil and camp," he said.
Plans include a landing access area for boats, a graded road, a storage shed, a 20,000-litre water tank, sleeping platforms for guests, small and large camp group areas, an ablution block, nature trail, camp kitchen, office, caretaker's residence and a waterslide.
None of the facilities will be visible from the river, but will be sheltered by the location's thick foliage.
Mr Mackay said the block was originally set aside by the Shire in 1981 for an environmental youth camp that did not go ahead, but his similar idea had been in the planning stages since 2004.
His access easement is located at the end of Crossing Falls Road, neighbouring 24 hobby blocks, which means a track to the camp would run parallel to the river.
Mr Mackay said he was waiting for approval to grade a different access track about 5km closer to town and perpendicular to the river, because he wanted to use the other area for a nature trail.
Permission to lease the block had been complex because it had included areas of native title, the Ivanhoe Station pastoral lease and Shire land, he said.
Mr Mackay said there were also a lot of environmental aspects he had taken into consideration, including fuel storage, toilet and grey water recycling systems, a regeneration program, selective irrigation and a firebreak.
