Grazier says ‘trust me not Google’, as travellers led astray by maps

Navigating the Aussie bush has its challenges, so when lost tourists first appeared on Graham Anderson’s front doorstep by accident, he took pity on them.

“They looked genuinely lost and needed a hand, so I pointed them in the right direction,” he said.

But after years of having bemused strangers arrive unannounced on his sprawling inland Queensland property, Mr Anderson was “jack of it” and invented his own road sign to direct travellers. 

Mr Anderson lives at Isla, about four hours’ drive west of Bundaberg, a region known for its maze of gorges and striking rock formations.

He discovered drivers were following Google Maps across his cattle property in search of the spectacular Isla Gorge, which had an entrance almost 20 kilometres further along the Leichhardt Highway.

“We had people coming in just all the time and they were saying it was Google, that they were following the maps across our property to get there,” he explained.

“We back onto the gorge and it’s along our border, but there’s no access to the gorge from our place at all.”

Mr Anderson said his pity soon turned to worry for travellers’ safety.

“We’d be down at the stockyards working cattle and all of a sudden, a car would come down there, turn around and shoot back,” he said.

“I think most people would get halfway in and then Google cuts out and they’d end up lost in the middle, you’re lost in the bush.

“We just can’t be here 24/7 and you don’t know who’s coming and going, so it’s a bit concerning.”

Man vs Google

The problem only got worse when COVID-19 travel restrictions lifted internally in Queensland in May 2020.

“It felt like every other day they were coming in, I’d say,” Mr Anderson said.

He estimated he’d had more than 200 groups enter his 2,800-hectare property over the past few years.

So, he took matters into his own hands, pitting his local knowledge against Google Maps.

“I didn’t really know what to do, I’d just had enough of it,” he said.

“For a thousand bucks, I thought I’d get a sign made.”

The cattle farmer said he thought long and hard about what to write on the road sign, but he eventually settled on a “bit of humour”.

“Sometimes you’ve got to make a bold statement,” he said.

“You could always have just written, ‘Isla Gorge that way’, but then if it didn’t say, ‘Trust me not Google’, they would have said, ‘How do they know?’, because Google knows everything.”

Navigating the bush

Google said it used “multiple sources to accurately model travel in the real world including third party data, user contributions, along with Street View and satellite imagery”.

“When there are inaccuracies, we work to fix them as quickly as possible,” it said.

Since it was contacted by the ABC, Google said it had fixed Mr Anderson’s issue.

The technology company advised travellers to download maps in advance if they planned to visit an area with little to no mobile service.

RACQ principal technical researcher Andrew Kirk said it was important travellers prepared properly for road-tripping in the bush.

“Planning your route and going to the TMR website to check the road conditions is important because, even throughout the trip, road conditions can change quite quickly,” he said.

“It also doesn’t hurt to have a backup map, rather than relying on Google maps. You can still get paper maps and the like to guide you the right way.”

Mr Kirk also urged drivers to check their cars or get them serviced before hitting the road.

“And make sure you’ve got all the tools required … should you get stuck with a flat tyre,” he said.

Sign success

Mr Anderson said he would keep his road sign up, even if Google had fixed the problem.

He said it had dramatically reduced the number of groups entering his property to approximately one every six months.

“People probably think, ‘What nutjob lives there?’, but it makes people look at it, people stop and take photos, so it’s certainly achieved something,” he said.

“I’ll just have to replace it in 10 years when the writing fades.”