One of the best views over Lake Ginninderra is from the beautiful Gossan Hill Nature Reserve. The Lake and Gossan Hill are connected via the Canberra Centenary Trail (Section 4 – Hall Village to Black Mountain). From the Belconnen Skate Park to the beginning of the Nature Reserve is approximately 1.5km either via the Centenary Trail or the University of Canberra.
From the Gossan Hill Nature Reserve there are superb views of the southern end of Lake Ginninderra out towards the Western Foreshore.
The reserve itself consists of dry forest woodland vegetation with high plant diversity, including some amazing orchids (best seen in spring). Gossan Hill is an important habitat for threatened and declining woodland birds including the varied sittella and the ground-dwelling speckled warbler that breed in the reserve.
You can also find the Swamp Wallaby (black-tailed wallaby) that look ‘different’, with a small head and ears. They have a strangely hunched shape and they hop along with their head held low and their tail straight out the back, not rocking up and down. They are almost black with chestnut around the ears and tinges of it elsewhere, and an all-black tail.
Near the College Street end of the reserve in a clearing near Radford College is an ochre pit. According to a nearby ‘Canberra Tracks’ sign, “the Ngunnawal people held large gatherings here and used the coloured ochres as a ceremonial pigment”.
Gossan Hill has a maze of criss-crossed fire trails and walking this trail in winter with fog around gives it an otherworldly feel. In warmer months meet some Eastern Grey Kangaroos throughout the reserve.