About Wireless Hill Park
Wireless Hill Park offers a unique opportunity to enjoy native bushland and animals, together with walks that offer stunning views of our Swan River and city centre.
Wireless Hill Park has picnic areas with free BBQs, a nature playspace accessible for all abilities, and toilets, with ample parking and extensive walking trails throughout the bushland, making it a popular destination for families and community groups for walking, bird watching and photography.
The legacy of the Wireless Hill Communications station
We are fortunate to have Wireless Hill Park as a legacy of the Wireless Hill communications station. The site was purchased by the Federal Government in 1911 for construction of the Applecross Wireless Station.
At the time that the communication station was built, the entire area was cleared, apart from a small patch of land near the current Council Office carpark. Veldt grass (Ehrharta calycina) from southern Africa was planted to stabilise the soil.
The site was burnt annually until 1967.
From 1967 the cleared area was not actively managed, and the native species began to regenerate from seeds of native plants in the surrounding bush, which are now the suburbs of Booragoon, Ardross, Alfred Cove and Applecross. Gradually, the Veldt grass is being replaced by natural vegetation.
The Wireless Hill bushland has been able to thrive among the suburbs, due to the area being reserved for the communication station and therefore not available for housing development.
Wireless Hill Reserve
Wireless Hill Reserve is a significant remnant of Banksia woodland (35.2 ha of bushland) south of the Swan River. It is a Priority 1 reserve under the City of Meville’s bushland priority system and is Bush Forever Site no. 336 under the State system of reserving vegetation complexes.
The vegetation complexes represented are Bassendean Dunes (Bassendean Complex – Central and South) and Spearwood Dunes (Karrakatta Complex – Central and South). The main trees are Corymbia calophylla (marri) (Uplands) over Eucalyptus marginata (jarrah), Banksia attenuata and Banksia menzesii, Low Woodland; with Xanthorrhoea preissii, Macrozamia riedlei and Stirlingia latifolia, and Open Heath to Shrubland. Several significant flora were listed in the park during the 1995 survey for Bush Forever. 10 species of reptile were found in a 1985 survey, one being a significant species, the gecko Diplodactylus alboguttatus.
In 2020 the Friends of Wireless Hill obtained funding for a Macroinvertebrate and Herpetofauna Inventory Survey. You can find the report here. We hope to conduct further surveys at different times of the year.