Our regions’ waterways, hiking & cycling trails, and snowfields make it easy to get out and experience nature. Whether it’s a calm and relaxing stroll under leafy trees, kayaking the white-water, or cycling through state forests, we love getting out in the great outdoors.
View ListingsTruly one of Australia’s great national parks, Kosciuszko encompasses most of Australia’s snow-covered areas, snowgum woodlands, grassy plains, pioneer huts, and spectacular caves and limestone gorges.
The park includes Mt Kosciuszko, the highest mountain in Australia at 2228m and the headwaters of the famous Snowy River. Originally a State Park set aside in 1944, the 690,000 hectares became a National Park under the management of NSW National Parks and Wildlife Service in 1967.
Image: Les Main – Tumut
It is an area of enormous natural diversity and offers many recreational opportunities. Bushwalking, camping, skiing, horse riding, fishing and mountain biking are just some of the activities on offer.
For comprehensive information on Kosciuszko National Park click here, and for safety information click here.
The diversity of landscape and climate makes the Snowy Valleys a perfect place for Birdwatching (or “birding” as enthusiasts call it), with over 200 species of bird recorded just in the Australian Alps Key Biodiversity Area alone. Although we do not have an exclusively endemic species in the Snowy Valleys, there are many species that make themselves fairly easy to locate, view and enjoy. Spring, summer and early autumn are of course the best time to see birds with many species migrating here to breed. These include many species of honeyeaters, cuckoos, kingfishers, dollarbirds, robins, water birds and more. These migrants join our locals, the many rosellas, parrots and cockatoos, the finches, robins and fairywrens, and the majestic birds of prey, along with the more common kookaburras, magpies, ravens & crows, magpie larks and willie wagtails that are just about always visible in the region.
Local favourites include the Gang Gang Cockatoo, Yellow-tailed Black Cockatoo, Crimson Rosella, Flame Robin, Superb Fairywren and Superb Lyrebird. These can be found in key birding locations such as Tumut Wetlands, Wereboldera Conservation Area, Ellerslie Conservation Reserve, Thomas Boyd Trackhead, Tumut State Forest, and Yarrangobilly Caves Walk.