Well, another lovely natural scene ruined - Wedding Cake Roc

NSW & ACT specific bushwalking discussion.
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Well, another lovely natural scene ruined - Wedding Cake Roc

Postby GPSGuided » Sat 30 May, 2015 5:45 pm

The famed Wedding Cake Rock on the Coast Track in RNP got a bit too famous and now NPWS has set up a fence around it. The graffitis with an ugly fence... A Shame! :evil:

http://www.smh.com.au/nsw/wedding-cake- ... 530-ghcwb2
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Re: Well, another lovely natural scene ruined - Wedding Cake

Postby Suz » Mon 01 Jun, 2015 10:27 am

:(
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Re: Well, another lovely natural scene ruined - Wedding Cake

Postby michael_p » Mon 01 Jun, 2015 12:55 pm

Nothing like people attempting to get a Darwin Award to stuff it up for the rest of us.

Amazing location. It's hard to believe that so much pure white sand could accumulate in the one spot. I also like how the water draining across the rock has stained it different colours.

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Re: Well, another lovely natural scene ruined - Wedding Cake

Postby FootTrack » Mon 09 Nov, 2015 6:41 am

When closed-off fencing, signs, and a previous fatality are not enough :roll: Perhaps these two should be paying for the rescue bill?

Man injured after falling from tourist destination Wedding Cake Rock (http://www.smh.com.au/nsw/man-injured-a ... ktrfi.html)

Two men have been winched to safety by emergency services after one fell from popular tourist destination Wedding Cake Rock, south of Sydney, on Sunday afternoon.
Police were called to the Royal National Park in Bundeena just after 3pm with reports a man had fallen from the rock and had head injuries.
The man's friend climbed down to try to help him, putting a makeshift pillow under his head and comforting him, before also becoming stranded, police said.
Once emergency services arrived, they found the men on a tiny, sloping ledge two metres from the top of the rock.
Below the pair was a sheer 50-metre drop to the ocean.
Both men, believed to be in their early twenties, remained on the ledge for more than two hours as paramedics and officers from Police Rescue abseiled over the edge to retrieve them.
A spokesman for the NSW Ambulance Service said the injured man was suspected of having spinal injuries.
"We assessed two people on scene. One hadn't fallen but had remained on site with his mate," the spokesman said.
"The patient that we're treating has suffered a significant fall and is assessed as having a spinal injury.
"We have currently winched both of them off that ledge."
At around 6pm, the injured man was being treated and stabilised at the scene.
He was expected to be transferred to St George Hospital for treatment.
The rock has hit the headlines in past months as a popular destination for tourists to perform dangerous stunts, such as handstands close to the edge, to get interesting photographs for social media.
In June, the National Parks and Wildlife Service permanently banned visitors from stepping onto the rock, which had been blocked off by temporary fencing, with warnings it could collapse into the sea at any time.
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Well, another lovely natural scene ruined - Wedding Cake Roc

Postby GPSGuided » Mon 09 Nov, 2015 8:12 am

Thanks for the link. Heard the report on the radio yesterday too. Some really can't help themselves and fortunately there's no guide implicated in this episode to take the blame.
Last edited by GPSGuided on Mon 09 Nov, 2015 6:53 pm, edited 1 time in total.
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Re: Well, another lovely natural scene ruined - Wedding Cake

Postby kjbeath » Mon 09 Nov, 2015 5:24 pm

Obviously no one told them that the section that everyone else stands and sits on is a shear cliff, whereas where they were was undercut like most Sydney sandstone and so it collapsed.
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Re: Well, another lovely natural scene ruined - Wedding Cake

Postby Grabeach » Mon 09 Nov, 2015 6:41 pm

They were actually not on Wedding Cake Rock, they were a bit to the north of it. From watching the video of the rescue, they appear to NOT have been in the fenced off area. Of course it was probably not the smartest place to sit. I guess the relevance of WCR is that it's getting lots of Facebook or whatever coverage, so there a lot of people going there who normally wouldn't be within cooee of a cliff a edge. Short of fencing off a few hundred kilometres of the NSW coast, there's probably not a lot anyone can do about it.
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Re: Well, another lovely natural scene ruined - Wedding Cake

Postby GPSGuided » Mon 09 Nov, 2015 6:55 pm

The amount of overhang on Eagle Rock was impressive. No ideas until viewed from a distance. One just needs to make the right judgement.
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Re: Well, another lovely natural scene ruined - Wedding Cake

Postby DaveNoble » Mon 09 Nov, 2015 9:49 pm

I have passed by that way a few times recently - and have always noticed a lot of instagrammers heading to the rock - and then getting out their selfie sticks and taking a few photos to put on social media. There was a recent accident on the rock (last year?) - where it seems that a person was posing for photos for his two female friends and it sounds like he overbalanced a bit, and fell to his death. The fence that is there now I think is to satisfy the coroner. On two recent visits - the fence had either fallen down or been knocked down, and in any case it was trivial to get around. Now there is a wide bulldozed track to the rock - perhaps to get in stuff to build a permanent viewing platform? Also - between Bundeena and "Instagram Rock" is a lot more rubbish on the side of the track than is usual - e.g. tissues.

In one way I think it is good that more people are going to a spectacular place to admire nature, but it would perhaps be better if they left their cameras/phones at home?

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Re: Well, another lovely natural scene ruined - Wedding Cake

Postby GPSGuided » Mon 09 Nov, 2015 9:55 pm

DaveNoble wrote:...if they left their cameras/phones at home?

You know that's almost a sacrilege in 2015, right? ;)
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Re: Well, another lovely natural scene ruined - Wedding Cake

Postby Xplora » Tue 10 Nov, 2015 4:08 am

And what do fences mean? http://www.smh.com.au/nsw/man-injured-a ... ktrfi.html

Stupid people will always do stupid things and putting a fence up will only encourage them. Some people think we have to do as much as we can to ensure the stupid gene is passed on to another generation.
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Re: Well, another lovely natural scene ruined - Wedding Cake

Postby GPSGuided » Tue 10 Nov, 2015 5:48 am

The whole legal system is geared to the liabilities of others and discounting of individual responsibilities. Great for litigious ambulance chasers but ruins the society for the rest.
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Re: Well, another lovely natural scene ruined - Wedding Cake

Postby kjbeath » Thu 12 Nov, 2015 5:53 pm

Thankfully a viewing platform is ruled out by the risk that the rock might tumble into the sea within a decade.

I don't think the national parks have a legal liability problem, as it is hard to sue for an obvious natural hazard. What they do have is a public relations problem that will force them to do something if people keep falling over the edge. It shouldn't be a problem because there are fewer killed falling off cliffs than are killed rock fishing, and they don't try to stop people from standing close to the edge on rock platforms.

I would just put a couple of signs on the track warning of the dangers, and let people do what they want to.
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Re: Well, another lovely natural scene ruined - Wedding Cake

Postby Mark F » Thu 12 Nov, 2015 6:27 pm

Perhaps they should help nature and give it a nudge. - problem gone.
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Re: Well, another lovely natural scene ruined - Wedding Cake

Postby north-north-west » Fri 13 Nov, 2015 6:28 am

kjbeath wrote:I would just put a couple of signs on the track warning of the dangers, and let people do what they want to.

It's funny, this.

The Cape Pillar loop track runs along the edge of some very high coastal cliffs, both on Pillar and up towards Hauy. It's never been fenced anywhere and for many years there weren't even any warning signs - and even when they appeared, it was just at the ends of the track, not anywhere near the cliffs. Same with Cape Raoul track. Going on reports for some places, you'd think these two would have a massive list of fatalities and major incidents. Are they too 'out of the way' to attract the idiots, or have we just been lucky so far?
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Re: Well, another lovely natural scene ruined - Wedding Cake

Postby cajun » Fri 13 Nov, 2015 7:11 am

there are plenty of signs on the track and surrounds already. Last time we were there, we were the only people on the correct side of the fence, with 20 or so on the cliff side.
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Re: Well, another lovely natural scene ruined - Wedding Cake

Postby GPSGuided » Fri 13 Nov, 2015 8:23 am

north-north-west wrote:The Cape Pillar loop track runs along the edge of some very high coastal cliffs... Going on reports for some places, you'd think these two would have a massive list of fatalities and major incidents. Are they too 'out of the way' to attract the idiots, or have we just been lucky so far?

Quite different. RNP is an easily accessible and popular NP for Sydneysiders and the Wedding Cake Rock formation is a unique and pretty geological feature, that attract casual walkers and the inevitable selfies and other photo ops. It's not just another coastal cliff which we have plenty of here in Sydney. As such, the present exposure and rate are not unexpected.
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