This deserves a separate story, but I was struck by the way the same issues and, indeed, the same people were involved in the fight for each.

In both cases, you had a small number of locals prepared to fight to bring the park about. In both, you had local members of Parliament who provided top cover and were prepared to co-operate across electorates to achieve common dreams, despite some local opposition.

In both, you had local newspapers prepared to support action. I suspect this was particularly important in Dorrigo, where the Don Dorrigo Gazette was edited by Roy Vincent's brother Reginald. In both cases, you had common problems that had to be resolved to protect the parks from alienation and to fund development.

In 1923, Roy Vincent as local member had blocked attempts to alienate the Dorrigo Reserves, but he still faced problems. In 1927, he tried to have the Dorrigo Mountain Reserves declared a national park to protect it from alienation. He was advised there was no provision to allow this. However, the reserves were declared a fauna as well flora reserve.

This, the minister advised, meant that changes to boundaries would require approval of both houses of state parliament. This was unsatisfactory.

As Armidale state MP David Drummond later recorded in the context of the New England National Park, it was too easy to bring in administrative changes in the final days of a parliamentary session when tired MPs could rubber stamp a change without realising the implications. Legislation was required that would then force specific legislative action to amend to alienate land.

It would be 1967 before specific national parks legislation was passed through the NSW Parliament. Meantime, Vincent and the other park supporters had other problems to deal with.