Alpine Victoria is home to Endangered peatland communities. When in good health, these alpine peatlands support biodiversity and provide many essential ecosystem services. A key challenge in managing these peatlands is identifying peatlands with poor hydrological function, as indicators of hydrological health have not been developed. In a search for useful indicators, we examined the chemistry of surface waters and compared these to expert assessments of alpine peatland condition. We found a lack of a relationship between our measurements and prior expert assessments of the peatlands as being in either good or poor condition, with all measures reflecting good water quality.Our water quality assessments provide a baseline for a range of water chemistry characteristics that can be used by managers to assess future changes to peatlands.