Greenbushes State Forest
Choose your TRAIL
Greenbushes Loop Walk
15 Km
This walk begins and ends opposite the Greenbushes Discovery Centre at the Heritage Park on Blackwood Road, Greenbushes and also joins onto the Waterbird Walk (Schwenke's Dam). This trail can be completed in either direction and takes in 5km of natural waterways, heritage mining areas, old growth mixed forest, rehabilitation areas then joins the Bibbulmun trail for 5km and followed by a 5km return to Greenbushes. The trail is marked by a triangular badge featuring a red-tailed black cockatoo (also older arrow direction markers) and interpretive information signs. Located along the trail lies Mt Jones Dam, also called Vultan Dam, the remnants of the Vultan Tin Mine which operated in the early 1960s. Walkers will also pass a large loading ramp used as a platform to load ore from trucks into the Vultan processing plant until the 1970s.
Traversing the pristine forest is a winter creek, numerous habitat trees, flocks of red tailed black cockatoos and a smaller loading ramp. There is also a valley lookout overlooking farmlands in the Blackwood Valley. Take a seat and enjoy the paddocks of wildflowers and grass trees, especially in winter.
Greenbushes Pool Boardwalk
516 m
The Greenbushes Pool Boardwalk is a short trail around an attractive natural waterhole located on the Spring Gully water course within walking distance of the Greenbushes town site. A decked boardwalk and viewing platforms have been built around the pool. The trail can be accessed as part of the longer Greenbushes Loop Walk Trail from Maran up Ford Road or by walking directly alongside Spring Gully Road on a bush pathway from town. The walk features interpretive signage providing information about local flora and fauna. It is wheelchair and gopher friendly, however, there are some gentle inclines to navigate.
The pool is an important historic site for the town and was used as a water supply for tin sluicing and mining operations from the late 1800s through to the 1900s. It was the venue for school swimming lessons for children from Greenbushes, Balingup, Kirup, Donnybrook and Bridgetown for many years and was still in use as a swimming pool up until the 1970s.
Facilities
Bushwalking
Toilets available
Parking is available
Greenbushes Pool wheelechair friendly
Picnic areas available at Herritage Park
Greenbushes Pool is dog friendly
WATERBIRD WALKING TRAIL
3.5 km
The Waterbird Walking Trail begins and ends at the Greenbushes Pool on Spring Gully Road 9it can also be accessed from the Schwenke's Dam car park and completed as a loop). The attractive trail takes walkers past wetlands and Jarrah and Marri forest, scrub and paperbark woodland and traverses part of the Greenbushes Loop trail. Keep an eye out for ring-tail possums as they have been spotted in the area. The Blackwood Basin Group has undertaken extensive rehabilitation work as part of the Priority Bittern and Water-Bird Biodiversity Enhancement Project throughout the wetland portion of the walk.
The jarrah and marriage forest is a known roosting site for forest black cockatoos and is a registered site for the great cocky count. Listen out for cockatoos and perhaps their young as many nesting boxes have been installed in the area to supplement their breeding habitat.
