Best Parks in Canberra: Complete Guide

Canberra's parks system reflects Walter Burley Griffin's original garden city planning vision, with parkland reserves constituting approximately 60% of the ACT's total land area and the Namadgi National Park covering the entire western ACT from the Brindabella Range to the NSW border. Canberra residents have more accessible national park land per capita than any other Australian capital city population.

Australian National Botanic Gardens — the Australian National Botanic Gardens (Clunies Ross Street, Black Mountain, free entry) has the finest collection of Australian native plants in the world, organised by plant family and biogeographic region across 90 hectares of hillside above the Acton Peninsula. The rainforest gully, the rock garden, and the Eucalyptus lawn provide the most concentrated introduction to Australia's extraordinary native plant diversity available anywhere.

Namadgi National Park — the Namadgi National Park (45 minutes south-west of the CBD) covers 106,000 hectares of subalpine and montane environments, with the Yankee Hat Aboriginal rock art site, the Bimberi Peak wilderness walking, the Boboyan Plains brumby country, and the Tidbinbilla Valley ecosystems providing an extraordinary range of natural environments within day trip distance of the capital.

Tidbinbilla Nature Reserve — the Tidbinbilla Nature Reserve (40 minutes south-west of the CBD, free entry) has free-ranging native wildlife (platypus, koalas, Eastern grey kangaroos, wombats, bettongs), the Sanctuary walk, and the woodland bird habitats that make it Australia's finest accessible native wildlife experience within a capital city's day trip range.

Lake Burley Griffin foreshore — the Lake Burley Griffin parkland (free) extends around the lake's 35km foreshore and provides the setting for Canberra's major national institutions, the Commonwealth Park (Floriade venue), and the lakeside cycling tracks that make the lake circuit one of Australia's finest urban cycling experiences.

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