SA’s volunteer Campground Host Program marks 40 years

Where else to cel­e­brate but at a nation­al park campsite?

Nat­u­ral­ly! From 13 – 14 May, camp­ground hosts and pro­gram staff gath­ered at Stringy­bark Camp­site in Deep Creek Nation­al Park. They were treat­ed to deli­cious catered meals (a camp lux­u­ry!), a Wel­come to Coun­try and Ngar­rind­jeri group ses­sion by Mark Kool­ma­trie, tele­scope stargaz­ing, tax­on­o­my and avian pale­on­tol­ogy ses­sion, and a ranger-guid­ed walk. Spe­cial awards were giv­en to camp­ground hosts for 10 and 35 years of vol­un­teer ser­vice, and for the most hours of ser­vice. And of course, there was cake.

Approx­i­mate­ly 450 vol­un­teers have worked with­in the pro­gram across its life­time in SA so far, com­plet­ing close to an amaz­ing 70,000 hours in total. The event was oppor­tu­ni­ty to for­mal­ly recog­nise this out­stand­ing con­tri­bu­tion to our nation­al parks and community.

What does a camp­ground host do?

Hosts stay at a camp­ground and offer a wel­com­ing pres­ence to oth­er campers, with friend­ly infor­ma­tion about the site, the park and things to see and do. Hosts also work togeth­er with NPWS Rangers and oth­er staff to main­tain camp­grounds and facil­i­ties, and help with tasks like weed­ing and revegetation.

Hosts might stay for a spe­cif­ic peak peri­od such as school hol­i­days or a long week­end, or they might stay for a few weeks or even months in more remote areas. It all depends upon the needs of the parks, and the host’s avail­abil­i­ty, train­ing and expe­ri­ence levels.

Camp­ground Host Sup­port Offi­cer Angus Gra­ham says, ​“the pri­ma­ry role of hosts is the sense of com­mu­ni­ty that they’re able to bring to visitor’s expe­ri­ences, act­ing as rep­re­sen­ta­tives of NPWS, engag­ing with the pub­lic and shar­ing use­ful information”.

Learn more about camp­ground host­ing here: How you can vol­un­teer to stay in some of South Australia’s nation­al parks.

Camp­bell and Eliz­a­beth Black were hon­oured for 35 years of hosting

Camp­bell said, ​“in fact we’ve now been doing the camp­ground host­ing for 36 years. So that makes us feel a lit­tle bit spe­cial, hav­ing seen it evolve from just after it started.”

They’ve seen a few changes over the decades. In the ear­ly days, Camp­bell says, ​“when we went to Kan­ga­roo Island we were giv­en a big bag of pel­lets and lit­tle white paper bags, and we filled the paper bags which were sold to tourists to feed the kan­ga­roos. And that’s not done now!” And camp­ing facil­i­ties have seen a few upgrades. At Stringy­bark for the 40 years cel­e­bra­tions, ​“we were blown away by the revamp­ing of toi­lets and hot show­ers and so on,” he said.

“Being a camp­ground host is won­der­ful. You meet peo­ple from all walks of life and are in a posi­tion to help them appre­ci­ate our beau­ti­ful nation­al parks. There are some places, like Katara­p­ko in Mur­ray Riv­er Nation­al Park and Dhil­ba Guu­ran­da-Innes Nation­al Park on the Yorke Penin­su­la, that are dear to my heart, but we are so lucky to have so many beau­ti­ful parks in South Australia.”

Appli­ca­tions to be a camp­ground host have just reopened

If camp­ground host­ing sounds like your cup of (bil­ly) tea, appli­ca­tions are now being tak­en. And work is under­way to restart host­ing in remote parks — Vulkathun­ha – Gam­mon Ranges, Gawler Ranges and Witji­ra Nation­al Parks, Innam­inc­ka Region­al Reserve and Ngarkat and Venus Bay Con­ser­va­tion Parks — which had been on pause for a while.

You can dis­cov­er more, includ­ing a link to the online appli­ca­tion form, here: SA’s Camp­ground Hosts Pro­gram — NPWS.

NPWS Com­mu­ni­ty and Nature Part­ner­ships Man­ag­er Helen Dono­van said that, if you were an avid camper, you prob­a­bly had come across a camp­ground host in one of our beau­ti­ful nation­al parks.

“Vol­un­teer camp­ground hosts gen­er­ous­ly give their time to make sure that your stay in a park is a safe and enjoy­able one,” Dr Dono­van said.

“I want to thank every­one who has vol­un­teered their time as part of this great pro­gram, and strong­ly encour­age any­body inter­est­ed in becom­ing a camp­ground host to put their hand up and get involved.”