How nice to receive this kind letter of support from a former local who still regularly visits family here. This message embodies the positive demeanour and spirit we wish to promote throughout the community. Published here with permission from the author (privacy protected): —— I live in Sydney but visit my mother regularly in . I heard during my last visit about the proposed new England Rail trail and was very excited by the proposal. I wanted to write and wish you well and offer any assistance I can provide to the project. My husband and I are in our fifties and are both keen walkers and cyclists. We have done many long distance walks recently completing the Coast to Coast walk across England (300km, 16 days) and Camino in Spain (800km 40 days). Long distance walks and bike rides are very popular, there is a fast growing number of active fifty year olds with time on their hands and money to spend. This would mean that a walk/ride through the beautiful New England area would be incredibly popular and bring great economic benefits to the community. Many of the small villages in Spain and England that are on these walking routes are kept alive by the tourists walking through the village. In other countries none of these routes are fenced, they all go through farming lands which the walkers/cyclists respect. I feel that local graziers should not be concerned at all about these routes being opened up to walkers and cyclists, it works very well in other countries and other parts of Australia. I would suggest that the route needs to be of a decent length. To get people to travel from Sydney for example you need to be able to offer at least a two day ride which should be 100 km I would think. Ideally walkers would do around 20km per day but on our walks between 10km-30km/day was done to complete a section to a next village. Including the route from Tenterfield to Armidale would be ideal as then a one way route is possible with easy access at each end. Anyway great idea, I will write to all the Councils & Adam Marshall expressing my support and please let me know if there is anything at all I can do to help. Yours sincerely, ——
Posted on: Fri, 03 Oct 2014 23:05:05 +0000
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