Environmental Conditions

The nature of venturing in the great outdoors on a Nature Trail tour is that our tours are inherently exposed to external Environmental Conditions which are outside our control.

These external Environmental Conditions may be grouped as follows:

  1. Permitted Access to Land by the land manager (Parks Service, Local Council, Private Landholder)
  2. Permitted Access by Road by government utilities such as a roads department or emergency service department(s) – Police, Fire & Rescue, Ambulance, SES, RFS, etc.
  3. Weather Conditions – outdoor activities are always at the mercy of the weather and the adverse impacts that this may cause.

Yes, we proceed in most weather conditions including when there is low cloud and/or light rain.

Environmental Conditions dictate whether our tour may actually start, or once started,  may then proceed else be cancelled by our Trip Leader for safety concerns.

Nature Trail’s Trip Planning Policy prescribes a safety best practice that entails our Trip Leader risk-assessing whether a trip may proceed safely as part of trip planning and preparation ahead of any trip.  This includes obtaining a complete suite of the status and extent of Environmental Conditions.

‘Environmental Conditions’ that trigger a tour cancellation

  1. Bushfire activity in the national park or area of the tour
  2. Land access closed to the specific hiking tour route – such as National Park track closure notification
  3. Road closure preventing access to the tour area
  4. Actual or forecast temperature of 30 degrees Celsius or higher in the tour area
  5. Actual or forecast temperature of zero degrees Celsius or lower in the tour area
  6. Actual or forecast thunderstorm (lightning risk) in the tour area
  7. Actual or forecast torrential rain in the tour area
  8. Actual or forecast wind gusts of 30kph (16 knots) or higher in the tour area
  9. Actual or forecast hail/sleet/snow in the tour area.

For safety, we do not proceed when there is actual or forecast snow conditions.

Logically, our Road Tours to Country Fairs are only run at the dates of those particular events.

Nature Trail reserves the exclusive right to cancel a booked tour due to vehicle problems, tour leader illness/injury, last minute withdrawal of minimum guest numbers, other tour guest concerns or for any other reason.

Nature Trail’s Trip Governance Policy also prescribes that during the delivery of a tour from trip start [Guest Meetup Briefing] to trip finish [Guest Debrief] that our Trip Leader has delegated authority to re-evaluate the risks posed by these Environmental Conditions.

Nature Trail reserves the exclusive right of our Trip Leader to cancel a trip at any time on the basis of risk assessment of Environmental Conditions deemed to be unacceptable or for any other reason, such as injury, illness, incident, conflict, etc.

Any tour cancellation that Nature Trail initiates, either before a trip or during a trip, shall be met by a prompt 100% refund of the prepaid tour price to each booked tour guest for whatever reason.

These policies are paramount to helping to ensure the safety and wellbeing of our tour guests at all times.

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This webpage updated 18th October 2022.