Across the Precinct: Glenthorne National Park-Ityamaiitpinna Yarta

From plan­ning a trail net­work to the design and devel­op­ment of an excit­ing new nature play space and acti­vat­ing an eco­log­i­cal restora­tion pro­gram, here’s the lat­est update on the projects under­way at Glenthorne.

Trail net­work planning

A con­cept plan for a trail net­work in Glen­thorne Nation­al Park-Itya­mai­it­pin­na Yarta is in the final stages of devel­op­ment, which will out­line a range of poten­tial trails and net­works across the sec­tion of the park on the south side of Majors Road.

The con­cept plan­ning process will con­sid­er how the trail net­work will link to oth­er recre­ation­al areas and open spaces and the main entry points to the park from the east – includ­ing Hap­py Val­ley Reser­voir, Lan­der Road and Matthew Street to the south, and Majors Road to the north.

Key look­outs and junc­tion points will also be con­sid­ered in this process and the con­cept plan will com­ple­ment the inter­pre­tive plan­ning work cur­rent­ly being finalised.

Nature play space

Plan­ning is also under­way for an excit­ing new nature play space at Glen­thorne Nation­al Park-Itya­mai­it­pin­na Yarta.

The $3.2 mil­lion nature play space will be a key fea­ture of Glen­thorne and will be joint­ly fund­ed by the state gov­ern­ment and City of Mar­i­on, who will con­tribute $2 mil­lion towards the project.

The Depart­ment for Envi­ron­ment and Water will engage a land­scape archi­tect to pro­vide a con­cept plan and detailed designs which will include nature play ele­ments and oth­er com­ple­men­tary facil­i­ties out­lined in the mas­ter plan.

Acces­si­bil­i­ty and inclu­siv­i­ty will be key fea­tures of the nature play space and the con­cept and design will also con­sid­er com­mu­ni­ty feed­back pro­vid­ed at the open days in 2019, along with input from local school students.

The design will also include paths which will link to oth­er areas of in the park, seat­ing, tables, BBQ facil­i­ties and drink­ing fountains.

Eco­log­i­cal restoration

Plan­ning is under­way for the restora­tion of Grey Box Grassy Wood­land across the south­ern side of the park as part of Glenthorne’s exten­sive eco­log­i­cal restora­tion pro­gram which is joint­ly sup­port­ed by the Aus­tralian Government’s Envi­ron­ment Restora­tion Fund.

90,000 plants will be prop­a­gat­ed to restore this threat­ened species with­in Glen­thorne Nation­al Park-Itya­mai­it­pin­na Yarta, as well as weed con­trol pro­grams and site prepa­ra­tion works across 165 hectares.

Read more about what’s planned for Glen­thorne this year.