QUARRY

Winners of Premier's Sustainability Award

We're a finalist in the 34th National Banksia Sustainability Awards

We converted a long-abandoned quarry into a beautiful, sustainable, safe, grassed amphitheatre for everybody's use. This project has been recognised at local, state and national level!

Given its massive size, we are always looking for more hands to help with the maintenance of this space. If you have some spare time to weed, mow, whipper-snip or plant some thing, get in touch.

Close up of people planting the slope of the quarry with natives

Winner of the Premier's Sustainability Awards 2022

Our project won the Community Champion Sustainable Places and Destinations Award.

Read our application to the Premier's Sustainability Award to get a snapshot of the quarry development up to mid 2022. For more information about the awards, visit Sustainability Victoria.

History of the quarry

There were many quarries around Warrnambool which have closed down. This area was used for sandstone, a local building material and was one of the last in use, closing about 1962. Only one wall was left due to filling in to support giant water tanks up the hill.

The quarry was a weed infested jungle with no access

An excavator in the quarry moving rocks and shaping the gully

Grass starts growing in the quarry, planted with native grasses

When we first moved to this site, it was a bare paddock with one-third of our space being the quarry area. The quarry had become a dangerous, inaccessible, weed- and vermin-infested scar on the land that we hoped to transform into a green, public space for community use.

Through broad consultation and professional guidance we developed concept plans in 2016-17 to develop the quarry into an amphitheatre and public education space. At that time, this was envisaged as a 10-20 year project.

“Pick My Project” grants, which was voted on by our community in 2018 provided the finances to complete a large amount of the work much faster.

Work started mid-2019. Construction of the amphitheatre was interrupted in 2019-2020, as permit and permission processes and infrastructure upgrades were worked through.

Community members completed native plantings in the sloped quarry walls in 2020 and 2021 between lockdowns.

Underground infrastructure and final amphitheatre shaping was completed, and in late 2021 lawn started growing in the amphitheatre.

In 2022, Warrnambool City Council awarded a Small Infrastructure Grant of $150,000 to Stage 2 of the quarry redevelopment - the forest gully and interpretative water display. This work will continue throughout the next few years pending planning permissions.

Watch our video diary of major steps in the development, thanks to project coordinator Bruce Campbell.