Where have we been, where shall we go?
Coffs Hikers shares information with our trusted leaders in a secure space, to make it easy to find information and add activities to our Calendar.
Table of Contents
What is the purpose of this Trails Collection?
- Trail inspiration to help both new and experienced leaders answer the question “where shall we go?”, with useful information for leaders such as access, lunch spots, gpx tracks etc.
- Connected to our Calendar activities, so we can see when a trail was last offered, and who led it, to help us plan.
- Easy to create a new activity on the calendar with a magic button!
How does Coffs Hikers know about all these trails?
- We gratefully acknowledge leaders, locals, rangers and friends who explore and share information with us. Please respect their trust, tread lightly and don’t share publicly where not appropriate.
- Information on some trails is made publicly available by National Parks, Councils and State Forests, and can be freely shared.
- We also find information in books (such as Ulitarra Conservation Society’s “Making Tracks”), maps, magazines, apps and websites.
- And then there is the legwork of exploring – being curious and following a creek, ridge, footpad or our noses to see what is around the next corner.
Finding and creating calendar activities from a trail
- A filter helps find a suitable activity to lead, for example filtering trails by grade or national park. The Map view helps select by location.
- You can tick the box to build your own shortlist of the trails you would like to offer in future.
- Find the trail you want to lead, and open it. Then scroll down and click the “magic button”.
- The activity will be added in draft mode for you to edit as required and publish.
Help, I don't know how to read a map, use an app, or understand what a GPX file is!
- Coffs Hikers are on AllTrails with a privacy setting that allows us to limit access to approved followers only. With the free version of AllTrails you can follow CoffsHikers to get access to GPX tracks. You can then download the GPX tracks and use them in the app of your choice.
- We recommend installing an app like AllTrails or GaiaGPS. You will need the paid version of to download maps for navigation in areas where there is no mobile coverage.
- There are lots of resources available for learning to read maps, how to use these apps, and you can also ask fellow leaders for tips.
- To improve your navigation skills, you need to practise! So upload a GPX file, go for a walk and track! Review your route after you have finished.
Guidelines for editing our Trails data
Can I add new trails and edit existing trail information?
- Yes! We hope this will be a collaborative effort. But if this is all too complicated and you don’t want to get involved, that’s fine too. Not all activities need to be in this collection.
- You can add new trails for walking, kayaking, cycling, or camping. You can edit existing trails to provide more information, correct mistakes, describe your trail variations, and leave comments. We ask that you read these guidelines and respect the work of others to maintain the integrity and quality of the Trails data.
- To edit a trail, find it and open it then click the “Edit Trail” button at the top.
- To add a new trail, click the “Add New Trail” button on the Trails page.
- If you edit a trail and totally mess up, please call the Coffs Hikers webmaster asap so she can try recover the original data.
What region do these trails cover?
- We focus on trails within a couple of hours drive of Coffs Harbour for day activities, or a bit further away suitable for a weekend campout. Although we occasionally offer activities further afield, we don’t aim to capture these. Otherwise there would be no limit to how big this trails collection would grow!
What trail information is required?
- While most fields are optional, we encourage you to complete as much as possible to help future leaders
- Some fields are useful for grouping trails (eg all trails in a specific national park), some help filter trails (eg the grade), and all are useful to a leader planning an activity.
- The status field – To Do, In Progress, Complete – can be used to indicate if the information is incomplete, perhaps a new idea you are researching, or a trail we’ve done but are still collecting information
A picture (or map) is worth a thousand words of text.
- You can embed a public AllTrails or GaiaGPS map with waypoints etc.
- For more sensitive routes, you can upload the GPX for leaders to download. Or put them on Alltrails marked “followers only” not public.
- For very sensitive routes, make a note that leaders should contact you for the GPX file, and you can choose who you want to share with.
What is the difference between “public” vs “sensitive” track information?
- Public: included on the land managers website (eg National Parks), signposted / named trail or public road (eg state forests).
- Sensitive: accesses private property, culturally or environmentally sensitive area, off track, high risk. If in doubt, err on the side of sensitive.
Please respect track information shared with you. If you track your activities on AllTrails or GaiaGPS, make sure your recordings are set to private, not public.
What if my version of a walk is different (better!) than an existing trail?
- Before you add a new trail, stop! First search by region or park to see if there is an existing trail similar to yours.
- If your trail is a variation of an existing trail, please make a note about your variation of the route, rather than adding a new trail. This will help keep the collection to a manageable size.
How should I name a new trail?
- Good naming helps us easily find walks later. Use the official name if there is one, eg “Red Cedar Falls”. Please don’t include the national park or state forest in the name, as we have a separate field for that.
- Keep it clear and simple and name it after the key features or locations, eg “Tallawudjah Creek” or “Urunga to Hungry Head”, so others can easily find it.
- The calendar activity name does not need to be the same as the trail name.
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I think it is a great idea. I am happy to help and would definitely contribute to it and be an active user of it.
Cheers
Moira