The brainchild of the Coonabarabran community, last year saw hundreds of people lined roads across NSW and Queensland with signs and banners showing their opposition to CSG.

It was originally supposed to stretch 100 kilometres from Coonabarabran to Narrabri, where Santos operates the Narrabri Gas Project.

However the social media campaign saw others register their interest and before anyone realised it, more than 2500km of roadside was lined, including the stretch from Dubbo, all the way along the Newell Highway and up to the Queensland border, and along the Pacific Highway.

Because of the success last year, Dubbo organiser Peter Small said there was even greater organisation put in for 2016.

Social media again alerted interested people across Australia and this time every state and territory will see at least some roadside action.

“What we found was that everyone wanted to be involved. What started as a community-based event grew into so much more,” Mr Small said. “If we knew it was going to be so big, we would have put even more effort in but we didn’t expect everybody to adopt it.”

This year the message has spread to include water pollution, especially the threats caused to water security by coal and uranium mining, as well as CSG and other unconventional gas mining.

“Water is such a necessity and people need to treat it with more respect. We are already seeing more people turn away from fossil fuels and towards renewable energy and that has to continue,” Mr Small said.

The whole aim of the protest was to raise awareness, Mr Small said, and he felt the roadside method was successful in doing that.

“It’s a peaceful protest but it’s also a very visible one,” he said. “Last year people were waving and beeping their horns.”

He said the timing was all about trying to get politicians to commit to make policies that were kind to the environment. 

“We held the last one before the state election last year and this date was chosen so that it may have some impact on the federal election. It would be nice if it generated a response,” he said.

The Dubbo leg of the protest will start at the intersection of the Newell Highway and Brisbane Street, where the welcome to Dubbo sign is located. 

It will run between 9am and 2pm.