Our Habitats

There are five major habitat types at Warrawong that enable us to accommodate a wide range of native animal species.

Dry Forest:

Warrawong’s dry forest was planted in 1976. This now provides a densely forested habitat for sanctuary wildlife.

2500 trees were planted on one hectare of land overlooking the Black Water Lake.

Over 25 species of tree were planted, the most successful being:
Tasmanian Blue Gum (Eucalyptus globulus)
Sydney Blue Gum (Eucalyptus saligna)
Mountain Ash (Eucalyptus regnans)
Rose Gum/Flooded Gum (Eucalyptus grandis)

The large smooth barked trees overlooking the Black Water Lake are the Rose Gum (aka Flooded Gum).

Scrublands:

Many of Warrawong’s animals originate from areas of Australia once covered with Acacia scrub, tall scrubland or heath. Warrawong’s scrub habitat is home to the Tammar and Red-necked Wallaby, which is why we sometimes refer to the area as Wallaby Hill.

Grasslands:

The favoured terrain of Red, Euro and Grey kangaroos. At night, the grassland fills with bandicoots and bettongs in search of fresh shoots, underground insects, bulbs and seeds.

Rainforest:

Many of the deep gullies in the Adelaide hills were once filled with ferns like the southern tree fern (Dicksonia antarctica) along with many other plants; more often associated with Australia’s higher rainfall areas. These deep gullies are often home to freshwater springs feeding the environment with an abundant supply of underground water.

These fertile pockets of land were the first to be cleared for market gardening in the late 1800s for their rich deep soil. Such was also the case for Warrawong’s deepest valley, now known as our Rainforest.

The misting system throughout the area creates a moist microenvironment to support the rainforest habitat. This is most important in summer to stop the gully drying out. The rainforest is a favoured site for our Red-necked Pademelons, Potoroos, Bandicoots and Bettongs. Platypus have also been spotted in the stream heading up between ponds. Two swamp wallabies (Black Wallabies) live in the marshy bogs at the bottom of the rainforest.

Wetlands:

‘Warrawong’ is an Aboriginal word meaning ‘water on the side of a hill’ and Warrawong is an excellent example of a hills waterway system with key wetland environments.

The main wetland environments at Warrawong include:

Freshwater Springs
The 2kms of streams with small pools
The Swamp
Black Water Lake
Rainforest
Many individual ponds

The wetland system is home to our platypus who thrive in our waterways and produce young every year.

Warrawong does not have any creeks running into the property. All the water, which makes up our catchment system, originates from natural springs, rainfall and occasional pumping from an aquifer beneath Warrawong.