The key The ends
The key, at its ends
The Coast’s parks each keep a season of their own
The Coast’s parks and walking tracks each keep their own season, and no single page gathers them: this is what NPWS promises at each place, set beside the seasons the cut-flower plan gives the flowers themselves.
General information from NSW Government sources; the native plant law is in the Biodiversity Conservation Act and the parks’ own rules, and the National Parks and Wildlife Service is the place to ask; the weed rules are the ones the Department of Primary Industries’ WeedWise lists for the region.
The places NPWS names, and what it promises there
Start with the parks, because their own pages carry the promises. Brisbane Water is where the service leads with spring wildflowers and scenic views from the lookouts, and its account of the park puts the landscape’s best stretch from late winter to early spring, when it comes alive with colourful wildflowers.
Inside that park one lookout does most of the wildflower work. Warrah lookout, over Broken Bay and the Hawkesbury River, is a short walk from the carpark, about 15 minutes one way; NPWS calls it a great place to see waratahs in season, records the late-winter bloom on display there, and notes that locals know the spot as Waratah Patch, one of the best places in the park for the fiery-red flowers.
Bouddi’s entry leads with its landscapes and counts wildflowers among the park’s attractions, and the coastal walk is the spring errand: colourful wildflowers on display. In winter the same coast turns to whales, with the service inviting the camera along as humpback whales migrate north between May and July.
Wyrrabalong’s promise comes wrapped in a walk. The Coast walking track, through a narrow strip of forest between Forresters and Bateau Bay beaches, is one of the Central Coast’s most beautiful walks; winter is the recommended time to walk it, with whale watching from Crackneck lookout, and spring brings wildflowers coming into bloom, ground orchids and flannel flowers among them.
North of that, Munmorah has the winter again, in the service’s plainest voice: the winter months are the best time to whalewatch at Munmorah. And the Moonee Beach trail is the heath walk to take late in winter or early in spring, when the coastal heath puts on wildflower displays.
The seasons the plan and the emblem’s page give
NPWS promises the places; the flowers’ own seasons come from the other side of this site’s sources, the cut-flower plan that sorts the species for the trade, and the page that keeps the state’s emblem record. The seasons below come from the plan and the emblem’s page, and they do not all fall in the same months.
| The flower | Its season, as its own page gives it |
|---|---|
| Waratah | September to November, on the floral emblem’s page; the Brisbane Water park’s own page notes that the waratah blossoms in spring, and the service’s Warrah lookout page promises a late-winter bloom. |
| Christmas bells | Generally December to January, “during the flowering period”, with honeyeaters among the frequent visitors. |
| Flannel flower | Spring and early summer, often en masse, from the plan’s flannel flower appendix. |
| Gymea lily | Spring and summer, on stems up to 6 m high, from the plan’s Gymea lily appendix. |
Three pages, read together
The waratah’s season is where the pages seem to disagree, and reading them together settles it. The botanic gardens’ growing notes for the species put its flowering at a six-week period in spring, September and October in the Sydney region, later in cooler country; the emblem page extends that to November; and the service’s Warrah lookout page, on the Coast itself, promises the late-winter bloom. Set side by side they bracket a long season rather than three different ones: earliest at the end of winter, latest in November, and the Coast’s own park page is the one to check for the week you plan to walk.
The whales keep a smaller version of the same story. NPWS gives the season slightly differently on two of its own pages: Bouddi’s visitor information runs the northern migration from May to July, and the Coast walking track’s page calls the best time to walk, whale watching included, May to August. Both are the service’s own words, a month apart at the far end, and the park page for the walk you have chosen is the one to read before you go.
One more season is worth knowing because it is not a flower’s at all: the walk the flannel flowers appear on is recommended for winter, with the flowers promised in spring on the same page. The Coast walking track is, in effect, two walks wearing one name, and the register row for the flannel flower keeps its spring line beside the park that supplies it.
A year of walks, in order
Gathered into one sequence, the pages above give the Coast a walking year with four moves.
- Winter: whales and the Coast track
The winter months are when the service sends whale watchers to Munmorah, and humpbacks migrate north between May and July off Bouddi; between May and August, whale watching is the reward on the Coast walking track near Bateau Bay, where winter is the recommended season to walk.
- Late winter: the heath and the waratahs
The Moonee Beach trail rewards late-winter walkers with wildflower displays in the coastal heath, and Warrah lookout is where the waratahs come in, a short walk from the carpark and known to locals as Waratah Patch.
- Spring: the parks at their fullest
Brisbane Water is the park the service leads with spring wildflowers, its landscape coming alive from late winter to early spring; the Bouddi coastal walk puts colourful wildflowers on display in spring; and the Coast walking track promises ground orchids and flannel flowers to spring walkers.
- Summer: the tall flowers
The Gymea lily flowers through spring and summer on stems up to 6 m high, and the Christmas bells flower generally from December to January, when the honeyeaters come to them. Their seasons come from the cut-flower plan.