In 2014 a boardwalk was placed on the first section of Wombat Moor that allows visitors to walk to the woodland mosaic without having to negotiate mud and water. This area has a range of alpine plants and it would be nice to place interpretive signs indicating the flora that is passed on the track.

The idea is in general that plants close to the track to have signs, although some very distinct and easily recognized larger plants that aren’t so close are also included in the project. The signs are to be designed and built so that they can be moved if the need arises, such as if a plant dies or moved to a better specimen if appropriate. Similar signs are present on in Little Desert National Park, Victoria. They are on metal poles and gave the idea for doing something similar at Mount Field NP.

A grant was received from Wildcare and their logo is included with mention as the funding source. Both Friends of Mount Field and PWS logos are also added. Each sign has a general photo of the bush that is the subject and the sign placed close to it in order to help people identify which plant is being described.. Often a flower photo included.

Mobile phone reception is very patchy on the moor and this precluded using QR codes.on the signs.

Quite a bit of discussion on the best means of installing the signs took place, but eventually we decided to use a wooden post cut at 45° with a wooden backing plate.

Installation took place on Sunday 30 April 2017

What a delightful day to be on Wombat Moor. The task was to install signs describing the various plants growing there and we worked in two teams of two, one putting in the poles and the other placing the sign on. This worked a treat and we got reasonably quick at it after the first few. The section of track involved is beside the boardwalk to the woodland mosaic.

The initial work on arriving at Mount Field was to predrill both the signs at the workshop and the supporting timber backing. Trevor from PWS and Greg B did determine that the backing timber would not be sufficiently durable in this climate and it would be best to substitute with marine ply. We will wait until after winter before acting.

Each post rises above the ground about 400 mm and designed with a 45⁰ slope at the top to make reading easy from Greg’s specially designed rammer for installing angle top posts worked to perfection and enabled the posts to be easily driven into the soil.

We all were delighted with how the signs looked noticed people walking up were stopping to look and read the new signs. Funds for the project were provided by Wildcare.

We managed to finish the job by lunch time before what proved to be hardest job of the day of removing the old information sign posts. Each had a stabilising foot attached making it very difficult to get them out of the ground.