Wildcare Grant

Wildcare Makes Up for the Shortfall

Wildcare Project Report—K Col Track Upgrade Finalisation

Written by Adrian Blackman

Upgrading the K Col Track between K Col and The Watcher in the Mount Field National Park has finally been completed. Construction of a top quality boardwalk there now allows walkers to traverse this fragile and valuable place in comfort while no longer causing environmental damage. This Wildcare Friends of Mount Field (FOMF) project was largely funded by the Tasmanian Community Fund but Wildcare Tasmania provided a crucial financial contribution enabling the project to be finished without compromise.

The Tasmanian Community Fund grant and other smaller donations were completely used for the purchase of timber and other materials, to pay for helicopter transportation of materials, and for employment of professional track makers. FOMF members provided significant help at no cost. Prior to construction work getting underway it became apparent that an error had been made in calculating the length of track that needed to be upgraded. Despite making as many cost savings as possible there was insufficient money to allow completion of the now unfinanced extra 80 metres of track.

Supplementary funds were needed to pay for both additional materials and to pay for the construction work. Various compromise solutions were discussed with the Parks and Wildlife Service but all would result in unsatisfactory outcomes. Fortunately a Wildcare grant was obtained to make up for the shortfall in funds. The K Col Track upgrade has now been completed as originally envisioned. In addition, an extra helicopter flight was possible enabling the transportation of a pack of timber (purchased by the Parks and Wildlife Service) to Windy Moor. The timber is for the construction of an additional section of boardwalk on the Windy Moor Track leading to Mount Field East. (The extra helicopter flight was relatively inexpensive since the aircraft was already in the area for the K Col project; if that was not so then about $3000 extra would have been needed just to get the helicopter there).

Mount Field National Park is Tasmania's 3^rd most visited national park and attracts almost 200,000 visitors annually. The many walkers in the park will benefit from the major K Col Track and the minor Windy Moor Track upgrade. (The latter work is yet to be completed, being delayed by the COVID-19 pandemic.) The Wildcare Friends of Mount Field gratefully acknowledge the crucial contribution that Wildcare Tasmania has made to these endeavours.

Posted 30 July 2020

An Opportunistic Job - Background to the project

The Friends of Mount Field have worked on the Mount Field East Track, that commences at Lake Fenton, since early 2000’s. One of the early projects there was a boardwalk over a very wet area that walkers were dodging and causing braiding and damage to bushes as they attempted to avoid the deep mud. It was a very unsightly spot and the local PWS agreed to remedy it by placing a boardwalk there. Another spot where pineapple grass was being trashed got included in the work. Timber was flown in and PWS arranged for the installation.

During the period of construction of the Windy Moor planking in 2017 a number of leftover treads from the above boardwalk construction were spotted behind a large rock outcrop. At the conclusion of Windy Moor project there was some timber unused and this gave rise to a plan to use both lots of timber to fix a degraded spot not far away. Approximately 400 metres prior to Windy Moor a short length of pineapple grass was being heavily trampled, and we discussed with Trevor Norris of PWS using it to overcome the damage there.

Rubbish had to be removed after the Windy Moor project finished and it was agreed that the helicopter would move the two loads of timber to the site during the clean-up operation. Although on the day of the helicopter job the weather was good, there was a layer of snow that unfortunately hid the spare timber left at the edge of the moorland. The other misfortune was that the bag of treads got dropped off at the wrong spot.

In the meantime, the K Col upgrade project came use the helicopter during the clean-up from that work to move the timber for the Mount Field East one. It had always been an opportunistic job and PWS thought that the area would be better suited to having planks rather than a boardwalk. The new plan was for PWS to buy planks and fly out the bag of treads and excess timber at Windy Moor for use elsewhere. The costs involved would be met by PWS and the construction work was to be a joint PWS and FOMF effort.

However, as the K Col project was drawing to a close it became apparent that there would not be enough funding left. PWS offered to divert the money set aside for the Field East work to help pay for the K Col shortfall. Fortunately, Wildcare agreed to provide $2000 to assist and this allowed the Field East purchase and delivery to go ahead.

additional funding from Wildcare

Report to be added below and link to Field East page for additional detail when work there is done