As the gates remain firmly closed to visitors at Exhibition Park in the wake of February's protester evictions, Canberra remains in the grip of a massive shortfall in temporary powered camping facilities at a time when caravanning and camping is booming across the country.
In the middle of a sub-zero Canberra winter with the morning frost crackling on the ground, it could be assumed the national capital would be well down the list for travellers rolling around the country with their caravans in tow.
But occupancy rates within the city's caravan parks are currently at levels seen only in peak summer, with precious few spare sites available and visitors seeking powered sites being turned away on a regular basis.
Exhibition Park's government-managed 116 sites have been closed off to the public since thousands of "sovereign rights" and anti-vaccination mandate protesters - the so-called "cookers" - set up inside the venue and eventually had to be evicted by police to make way for the Canberra Show.
The presence of the protesters also forced the cancellation of the annual Lifeline Book Fair charity drive due to abuse directed at visitors and volunteers and the destruction of fences.
The ongoing presence of the protesters in the national capital, albeit in much smaller numbers, continues to rack up significant costs for the ACT with no advice provided yet on compensation. In May this year, the police cost of managing the groups had blown out to $3.5 million.
Concern lingers within the government that reopening Exhibition Park to camping could potentially entrench the protesters and provide a base which would swell their numbers again.
"Following the experience with the protesters earlier this year Venues Canberra is reviewing security arrangements, terms and conditions and booking systems," the government said in a statement.
Given the shortage of powered sites across the territory, the venue could be generating as much as $32,450 per week for the government.
Venues Canberra has been funded to develop a staged redevelopment plan for the 70-hectare site which has strong potential for what the government has described as "mixed use residential, commercial and educational" purposes.
"As part of this long-term project, the campground and its use, will be a considered," the statement said.
However, there were also fresh competing interests. A private consortium has met with the government to discuss building a V8 Supercar track within the precinct which, should it prove commercially feasible, would generate significant tourism income.
The limited amount of powered sites in the territory comes at a time when the government has announced extra funding in the ACT budget for marketing campaigns designed to encourage visitors to return to Canberra, after the tourism market nearly halved during the COVID-19 pandemic.
Canberra has been swept up in the national post-lockdown fervour for caravan travel - the biggest such boom in 50 years - despite the often fierce chill of a national capital winter.
For venues like Canberra Park in Kenny, the caravan cavalcade has been a welcome one as it has helped to bring in much-needed income while its core business of catering for large school groups to see the national attractions all but dried up during the long, hard months of the pandemic peak.
"For the past few weekends - in fact for some time now - we have been absolutely full. We couldn't offer a spare site," Canberra Park's general manager David Grigg said.
"During the week, we find a few spaces become available but much of the time we're running at 80 per cent or higher daily occupancy across the park.
"If we had more sites, I have no doubt we could fill them."
Similar levels of high occupancy have been reported at other parks with on-site cabins, such as Alivio in O'Connor and the Eaglehawk Park just over the northern border.
It's a nationwide phenomenon as tens of thousands of haulers take to the road, creating boom times across all facets of the caravan industry and, in turn, fuelling a peak demand for suitable tow vehicles, with expensive twin cab utes and large 4WDs consistently among the country's best-sellers. Record petrol prices haven't even caused a hiccup in demand.
Inflated second-values of vehicles with strong tow capacities of 3 tonnes or more have been matched by those of the caravans hooked up behind them, with owners planning a big trip able to buy new - if they can find a new van, with the industry in desperately short supply - then complete their "big lap" of the country, return home and make a profit on the resale.
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