Ngunnawal Country · Black Mountain, Canberra
Walk into Australia’s garden
Seventy thousand native plants on the lower slopes of Black Mountain, two and a half kilometres from the centre of Canberra. Free to walk in. Open from half past eight.
Canberra from Black Mountain Tower. Photo JJ Harrison, CC BY-SA 3.0, via Wikimedia Commons
Visiting essentials
Acknowledgement of Country
The Gardens stand on the lands of the Ngunnawal people. We acknowledge the Ngunnawal people as Traditional Custodians of the ACT and recognise any other people or families with connection to the lands of the ACT and region. We acknowledge and respect their continuing culture and the contribution they make to the life of this city and this region.
The plants growing here have been used, tended and understood on this Country for thousands of years. Read about Ngunnawal plant use, drawn from the Gardens’ own published trail.
Four ways in
However you like to find things out
The collection runs to 90 hectares. Take the guided walk, wander the map, or point your camera at whatever stopped you.
8 stops · 30 min
Walk the path
A stop-by-stop walk up the Main Path, with the story of each plant told where you would meet it.
Start walking
Live location
The map
Every garden, lookout and washroom on one illustrated map, with the nearest facilities worked out from where you are standing.
Find your way
Prototype
Identify a plant
Photograph what caught your eye and narrow it down to a species, with the facts worth knowing about it.
Open the scanner
Cultural knowledge
Ngunnawal plant use
Food, fibre, water and medicine from the plants growing here — recorded on the Gardens’ own trail, sourced from Ngunnawal people.
Read the trail
Why bother coming
Because a photograph of a tree fern is not a tree fern
The Rainforest Gully is noticeably cooler than the car park. Snow Gum bark smells of nothing until it rains. A banksia cone is heavier than it looks, and the seed will not come out unless something burns.
All of it is free, all of it is a few minutes from the middle of town, and none of it needs planning beyond knowing when the gate is open.