Ku-ring-gai Chase National Park

Ku-ring-gai Chase was set aside in 1894, making it Australia's third-oldest national park, and its National Heritage listing covers the park together with Lion Island, Long Island and Spectacle Island nature reserves. This is Country the heritage listing attributes to the Garrigal people around Broken Bay and the Terramerragal people around Turramurra. More than 800 Aboriginal sites are recorded across the park and its island reserves — middens along the foreshores, grinding grooves, rock shelters and over 170 rock engraving sites, among the largest collections of Aboriginal art in the Sydney region.

The landform is drowned river valleys: rising seas after the last ice age flooded Hawkesbury Sandstone valleys into the branching waterways of Cowan Creek and Pittwater, leaving Lion, Long and Spectacle islands as remnant peaks. West Head lookout at the end of the Lambert Peninsula looks straight over that pattern to Broken Bay, Pittwater and the ocean. Bobbin Head and Akuna Bay sit on the water below, and more than 1,000 native plant species cover the plateaus, mangroves and rainforest gullies.

What to expect

Reviewed 11 November 2026

You come in on sealed road whichever way you approach — Bobbin Head Road through North Turramurra, Ku-ring-gai Chase Road off the Pacific Motorway at Mount Colah, or McCarrs Creek Road from Terrey Hills and Church Point — and 2WD is fine on all of them. The park sits about 25km north of the Sydney CBD, 45 minutes to an hour's drive, so people do come for the day. Out at the end of West Head Road, on the tip of the Lambert Peninsula, the lookout drops you straight into the park's signature geography: Cowan Creek on one side, Pittwater on the other, Broken Bay and the ocean beyond, and Lion Island sitting in the water below with its sand spit. The road simply ends at the view, with Resolute picnic area nearby for toilets and picnic tables. Watch the clock on the way back: the West Head Road gates are locked overnight, at 8.30pm during daylight saving and 6pm the rest of the year, and the Sphinx Memorial carpark gate shuts at 7pm. There is no fuel anywhere in the park, so you start with a full tank or you do not start.

Out at West Head the tracks run through what the National Heritage listing calls one of the largest collections of Aboriginal art in the Sydney region — more than 800 recorded sites across the park and its island reserves, over 170 of them rock engraving sites cut into Hawkesbury Sandstone shelves. The Red Hands Cave walking track leaves Resolute picnic area and climbs 0.6km in 30 to 45 minutes to a rock shelter where ochre handprints cover the wall. You look, and you do not touch: laying your own hand over the prints transfers skin acids that damage them. The longer Aboriginal Heritage walk loops about 5km in 3 to 3.5 hours past shelters, engravings and the cave, and NPWS publishes both the loop and the shorter cave track as self-guided walks. If you want the story that goes with the stone, book a walk with Traditional Custodians — Guringai Tours runs a day of short walks from Resolute picnic area that finishes at West Head lookout.

The Basin sits across Pittwater from the West Head peninsula and is the only place you can camp in the park. There is no road to it: you leave the car at the West Head Road carpark and walk 2.8km down a steep track with your gear, or arrive by ferry from Palm Beach Wharf, water taxi or your own boat, anchoring in the sheltered bay opposite the campground. What you find is 114 unmarked, unpowered sites among the trees, up to 350 campers at capacity, with flush toilets, cold showers, drinking water, barbecues and a public phone. There is a sheltered beach and a lagoon behind the dunes, and swamp wallabies and kookaburras work the edges of the campground. Day visitors pay a landing fee at the wharf; campers have it folded into their fee. Fire pits are booked onsite only and firewood is sold there, and the camp manager sells ice and bait in two short windows a day.

Off West Head Road the walking is short and steep. The Flint and Steel track drops 2km return in 45 minutes to 1 hour 15 minutes, Grade 3, to a beach exposed to swell rolling in from Broken Bay — fine for a look, less so for a swim on a big day. America Bay walking track is 1.8km return over 1 to 2 hours along a sandstone ridgeline to a small waterfall at the bay, with engravings on a shelf near the start, though NPWS warns the track is in poor condition with uneven surfaces and slip hazards. For something harder, the West Head army track drops 0.45km down the eastern face to a wartime battery in 1 to 1.5 hours and needs ladders on the steep sections — three points of contact, facing the ladder. The Waratah track runs 10km return over 2.5 to 3.5 hours through heathland with views over Akuna and Yeomens Bays. None of these tracks have drinking water, and none are wheelchair accessible.

The park records more than 1,000 native plant species and its animal list includes the spotted-tailed quoll, southern brown bandicoot, koala and eastern bent-wing bat. On an ordinary day you will see lace monitors nosing around the picnic grounds at Bobbin Head, swamp wallabies at The Basin, and cockatoos, rosellas and brush turkeys around Kalkari Discovery Centre, whose Discovery Trail is the park's wheelchair-friendly walk. Lion Island, one of the three nature reserves in the heritage listing, carries a breeding little penguin colony counted among the most stable in Australia. Two practical things shape every visit: mobile reception is limited across the park and you need it to call Triple Zero, so download the Emergency Plus app before you leave; and NPWS runs 1080 fox baiting across the park at times, using baits and canid pest ejectors that are lethal to dogs and cats. Check the NPWS alerts page the day before you go — tracks close for rockfalls and other hazards, and the park itself can close for poor weather or fire danger.