Visiting Bush Heritage Australia's Scottsdale Reserve
by: Peggy Brannigan, Director - Friends of the Australian Bush Heritage Fund
Come with me to a place full of hope and rugged beauty. We depart from the outskirts of Canberra, and in just 45 minutes, we arrive at a protected reserve along the Murrumbidgee River on the traditional lands of the Ngunnawal and Ngambwi people. We step into a landscape of endangered grasslands, Snow Gum Eucalyptus pauciflora woodlands and riparian shoreline. It’s home to two delightfully weird and elusive creatures unique to Australia – the platypus and the wombat!
Welcome to Scottsdale Reserve. This place is undergoing a magical rebirth that you can see and feel and hear. For the past 100 years, the property had been used for farming, as 600 hectares (just under 1500 acres) of native vegetation were cleared to grow crops and raise sheep. But the soil wore out, invasive grasses spread, the river system was stressed with the introduction of highly invasive Carp, and the natural ecosystem of plants and animals – some unique to Australia – suffered great loss.
In 2006, Bush Heritage acquired this land to restore and conserve its biological diversity, partnering with local traditional owners. This work is crucial, because in Australia less than 5% of grassy woodland ecosystems remain. These lands can harbor an astonishing 300 species of native plants and many birds, reptiles and mammals.
The Reserve Managers, Kim Jarvis and Phil Palmer, give us a warm greeting. They’re experts in botany, revegetation, conservation, and community partnership. Phil explains the master plan for this project, pointing to a map for strategic removal of invasive plants and repopulation with native species. Kim proudly shows us the seedling nursery she has created which is nurturing important understory species, and grasses and forbs. Next we walk with Phil to several revegetation sites. You can’t help but feel hopeful when you look out across a field dotted with thousands of white flags marking new plantings.
Each year, 10,000 new plants are set in the ground, and their growth is already uplifting the health and resilience of this habitat. We traverse to a site where Bush Heritage is re-introducing threatened flora species like Button Wrinklewort.
The sun is low in the sky now. It’s dusk, so we hop into a Jeep for a ride along the banks of the creek. It feels like a ‘safari’ because we all hope to spot a glimpse of a wombat or platypus. We know they are out there, probably watching us! Driving slowly, we suddenly see a small gray square head pop up from a hole along the shore, and yes, it’s a wombat.
Several other wombats scurry across the landscape and dive back into their underground tunnels. Wombats are fascinating; they are marsupials who have pouches for their newborn babies. Their underground burrows become places of shelter for many other animals during wildfires.
Just as we’re ready to head back to the lodge, we stop at the water’s edge and hold our breath. We hear a splash of water and see a brown form moving underneath the current. A platypus raises its head and turns toward us. We see a flash of its bill before it slides gracefully back underwater. The platypus is an unusual creature; it’s an egg-laying, duck-billed, beaver-tailed mammal, which used to be hunted for its fur but is now protected across Australia. We know it’s a rare stroke of luck for us to actually see one in the wild.
Scottsdale Reserve welcomes hundreds of volunteers from the community to help make this dream become reality – roughly equivalent to 1,000 working days each year! Bush Heritage relies on volunteers at many of its reserves to achieve its critical conservation work year round – you can read more here: https://www.bushheritage.org.au/get-involved/volunteer. Scottsdale is one of the most visited reserves and to look after landscapes like this, Bush Heritage knows it must first look after the staff and volunteers. Long-term Bush Heritage advocate Gina Grubb recognized this need after years of visiting and volunteering at Scottsdale. Through her generosity, the new Scottsdale Conservation Centre was opened in 2026 welcoming us as some of its first visitors.
My husband, Steve and I visited Scottsdale Reserve recently, and it confirmed our trust in the Bush Heritage team and our support for the transformation happening there.
See more photos from Peggy’s trip to Scottsdale Reserve below!
