Robertson Nature Reserve

Robertson Nature Reserve is a tiny 5.3ha reserve, but it’s packed with natural wonders. It conserves one of the largest and least disturbed areas of rainforest remaining from the Yarrawa Brush. Step inside this dense cool or warm temperate rainforest and you’ll find unique shrubs, soft tree ferns, numerous vines and intricate fungi. Look up into the canopy at trees like sassafras, featherwood, coachwood and possum wood. Watch for the flashes of crimson rosellas darting through the trees or listen for the whip crack call of the eastern whipbird.

The dense rainforest you’ll find at Robertson Nature Reserve once covered 2500ha of the red basalt soil area around Robertson. The Yarrawa Brush, or ‘Brush’, as it was called by the early explorers who were trying to forge a route from the highlands to the coast, was first penetrated by Charles Throsby in 1817. However, the area was not significantly cleared until the 1860s, when settlement around Robertson began. But by the early 1900s, more than 80 per cent of the Yarrawa Brush was gone. Today, only about 500ha of fragmented patches survive, making Robertson Nature Reserve a special window into the past as well as an important place for conservation.