Symptoms

Signs: they’re everywhere, maybe too many of them. But when they start to decay, you’d have to say they give the neighbourhood a neglected character. And the signs around our public land are definitely looking neglected: out of date, rotting, falling over, they’re symptoms of the underfunding of public land management.

Poverty Gully water race: many of the signs in our bushland are in decay, sending a message that ‘no one cares’.

This air of neglect—the sense that nobody cares—is arguably one of the reasons our bushlands can be targets of abuse. If no one cares, why not dump rubbish in the bush, or ride a trail bike down an inviting gully? It’s only a bit of scrub, after all…

And here’s a twist: there are parts of our bush where we have not one, but two signs, as if DELWP’s supply chain suddenly blew a fuse and started to supply duplicates randomly around the region. Famine, feast, famine…Figure that out.

Porcupine Ridge Road: if you’re not sure the first sign is right, check it against the second!