By Margaret Maccoll
The numbers are thinning out at Johns Landing but with only a couple of weeks until the camp ground shuts, some long-term residents are still unsure where they will go.
Associated businesses are also feeling the effects of Johns Landing closure including Gagaju Bush Camp which will be forced to shut.
On Sunday, residents and friends gathered to enjoy the time they had left together and play a few rounds of darts.
Warren (Was) Riuhi said he had secured accommodation with a gap of about a week between the camps closure and it becoming available, but there was no use worrying about it. He said he would miss the company at the camp site.
The group praised the efforts of workers from council and accommodation services who had been assisting them.
However, Joanne Popp said many of the residents were feeling the stress of an uncertain future.
Des Balharry aims to move to Inskip Point, but with his wife in hospital and medical appointments due, he is concerned about what will happen over the next couple of weeks.
Another resident said he couldn’t afford to rent in the area and he had tried other camp sites, but couldn’t find one to accommodate his cat. He didn’t know what he’d do.
Camp owner John Bens said shop owners in Tewantin would feel the loss from camp residents and there were other repercussions of its closure.
Having been unsuccessful in finding an alternate property to base itself, the Gagaju Bush Camp will cease to trade in about two weeks. A spokesman said the bush camp owners were very upset at its closure.
Total Adventures at Tewantin which operates school-based adventure activities can no longer stop off at Johns Landing on their canoe ventures from Noosa North Shore to Boreen Point.
Spokesman Phil Loder said the group which operated about 150 programs for about 1000 school children annually would have run 20-30 programs that stopped at Johns Landing for day and overnight camps.
“There is nowhere else with toilet facilities,” he said. “It makes it hard to run those programs.”
Phil said they needed to alter their programs to accommodate the closure.
