Booderee National Park

Booderee National Park covers the southern headland of Jervis Bay, in the Jervis Bay Territory — Commonwealth land rather than New South Wales. It is Aboriginal land: owned by the Wreck Bay Aboriginal Community and jointly managed with Parks Australia. 'Booderee' is a Dhurga word meaning 'bay of plenty', and the Traditional Owners are saltwater people of the south coast; close to 80% of the park's staff and contractors are local Indigenous people. The cliffs show layered sandstone, conglomerate and siltstone laid down in a marine environment 280–225 million years ago, with ancient, vegetated dunes rising behind the beaches.

What you get is variety without effort: the 5.4km Munyunga waraga dhugan loop with its 14 interpretive signs, the low-tide walk to Hole in the Wall, the ruined Cape St George lighthouse on its clifftop platform, and the Booderee Botanic Gardens around Lake McKenzie. More than 200 bird species live here and whales pass the headlands from May to November. Three campgrounds — Green Patch, Bristol Point and Cave Beach — keep you inside the gate overnight, and the whole park is an easy day trip from Huskisson or Vincentia.

What to expect

Reviewed 10 November 2026

You turn off Jervis Bay Road onto sealed tarmac — no 4WD is needed to explore the park by car, though Stony Creek Road and Ellmoos Road are unsealed and the speed limits run low, so the last kilometres take longer than you expect, and wombats, wallabies and goannas are on the road at dawn and dusk. Green Patch is the natural first stop: rippled sand flats and shallow water in front of a wall of eucalypt forest, a campground tucked in behind the trees, and free electric barbecues at the day-use area where crimson rosellas, kookaburras, king parrots and wood ducks work the picnic tables. It is 10 minutes from the Booderee Botanic Gardens to Green Patch, and the drives between the park's main sights run 5 to 15 minutes each. Green Patch faces into Jervis Bay and stays calm enough for children, with sand that keeps going out at low tide and shaded grass right behind the beach — which is why the campground fills first.

At Murrays Beach, the car park puts you within 300m — about 5 minutes — of the sand, and the Munyunga waraga dhugan loop sets off from the same place: 5.4km, 2.5 hours, grade 2, with 14 interpretive signs explaining Wreck Bay country as you walk. The spur to Governors Head is 1.1km and 20 minutes from the car park, and it is the park's other whale-watching lookout. At low tide you can keep going: 1.1km and 30 minutes to Hole in the Wall, or 4km and 1.5 hours along the sand to Green Patch. Check the tide first, because both are beach walks that disappear under water. Offshore, Bowen Island sits at the mouth of the bay; the island and the water within 30m of it are closed to public access to protect nesting seabirds, and the sanctuary zone 30 to 100m out is a no-take area where anchoring is prohibited — swimming, snorkelling and diving are still permitted.

Steamers Beach is the park's wild coast: 2.3km one way, an hour, moderate to difficult, through tall eucalypt forest and tea tree before a steep flight of stairs drops you onto a beach flanked by high cliffs and backed by steep sand dunes. Do not swim here — the park warns of severe rips and large sharks — and treat it as a walk with a view rather than a beach day. From the Steamers Beach car park the Circuit Trail loops 11.4km around the St Georges headland (allow about 4 hours for the main sites), with legs to Brooks Lookout (1.4km, 30 minutes) and St Georges Head (4.9km, 2.5 hours) before dropping inland past Blacks Waterhole and back to the car park.

Fire shapes this coast more than you might expect: bushfire has killed stands of banksia along the cliff tracks, the eucalypts have regrown blackened but alive, and the park runs annual red fox control to give native animals a better chance. When a total fire ban is declared for the Shoalhaven district — or at other times the park manager decides — most walking trails close and only the Murrays Beach, Cave Beach, Bristol Point, Green Patch and Cape St George Lighthouse access points and some botanic gardens trails stay open, with no fires for any purpose and heat beads and solid fuels banned. In summer the hazard is heat as much as fire: carry and drink at least 1 litre of water per person per hour, walk in the cooler parts of the day, and stay off any track closed because of heat. Average temperatures run 9–15°C in July and 17–24°C in January, so a winter morning on an exposed headland still needs a windproof layer even though the walking is easier.

The park's history is on display too. The Cape St George lighthouse was built in 1860 in the wrong place; a replacement went up at Point Perpendicular in 1889, and because the two lights confused ships by day the Navy demolished Cape St George in 1922 — the sandstone ruins remain on the clifftop, with the viewing platform reached by a short walking trail and views across to Bowen Island. Parks Australia counts over 200 bird species, over 30 native mammals including 10 bat species, 37 reptiles, 17 amphibians and at least 180 fish in the park's waters, and whales pass the headlands from May to November, sometimes close to shore with newborn calves on the spring migration. For the culture behind the landscape, Aboriginal-owned Djungga Kultural Tours runs guided walks from the Booderee Botanic Gardens car park covering bush foods, bush medicines and traditional tools.