Originally Posted by
JDNSW
The legal situation varies from state to state. From what I have heard, Victoria is notably better than NSW.
The area involved here was subdivided in 1911, with road reserves delineated providing access to all blocks. The blocks were then apparently opened to selection in the early twenties. However, there were no successful selections over a large area of forest, mostly described on the original maps as "barren stony ridges". As a result, most of the area became State Forest, and provided a lot of railway sleepers from about 1930-1990. Roads were maintained by State Forests. In 2006 the land was transferred from them to NPWS.
However, it seems that many of the roads were deliberately excluded from this transfer, although this is rather unclear. This means they are unalienated crown lands. There was a major fire in the forest in 2007. NPWS has done some road maintenance on some of the roads since then.
The road I use is partly a road that existed before the 1911 subdivision, and partly the rectangular grid set up by the subdivision and formed as roads by Forests NSW. Adjoining landowners who use the roads did occasional maintenance and improvements until threatened with prosecution by NPWS after 2006.