Rockhampton Botanic Gardens & ZOO

Well worth taking a stroll through the many different areas these gardens have to offer. Parking can be difficult to find, but if you drive down towards the lagoon it's not so busy there. Japanese Gardens were under maintenance, so didn't get to enjoy them. Combine these Botanical Gardens with the zoo next-door and you can have a relaxing enjoyable day!

Wow the playground is incredible! It gets raked and cleaned every day so it was tidy when we arrived in the morning! All gardens were spectacular, very clean tidy and green! Lots of love and work goes into the garden and you can tell!

Went for a walk after seeing the zoo. Lovely gardens (we didn’t see every section but enjoyed what we saw). The Japanese section was lovely. Next time I’d bring a picnic - plenty of spaces to unwind and there was a nice looking kids playground with undercover BBQ’s.

Visited May 2025 The gardens are quite large. Being May there weren't many flowers in bloom making it a little visually boring . The plants around the floral clock needed a trim because you couldn't see it. I love Japanese gardens but I found this one without the wow factor. The banyan figs around the tea rooms provide lots of shade and are beautiful. Food is quite good from the tea rooms I had zucchini fritters with a small salad and my husband had the eggs benedict on a bed of bacon which he said was delicious. The blue eye honeyeaters and rainbow lorikeets jump on the tables wanting to be fed, you can almost touch them. There is a childrens playground not far from tea rooms but not close enough to keep an eye on your kids. Down at Murrays Lagoon many water birds along the banks and looking in the water from the wetland lookout are so many river turtles popping up looking for a feed. I would have liked to see information boards explaining the different gardens. The gardens are 33hectares which I googled is around 46 soccer fields (for those who need a comparison, as I did!) so plenty of room for riding a bike or a long walk. I'd like to think it is more appealing in spring. But none the less a good walk and a tea rooms a lovely place for a cuppa. Overall underwhelming.

Great zoo and gardens. We needed more time than we had to fully explore the extensive gardens.

Lovely place to have a walk/run. Plenty to see from plants, turtles down a murray lagoon. Large play park for the kids. Even coffee shop. Plenty toliets and park for all.

A great botanical gardens that offers some of the best scenery and walking tracks in the area

Myself, 2 daughters, son-inlaw and my 2 grandchildren (2&3) chose Rockhampton as our meeting place for Christmas this year and we took a trip to the Botanical Gardens. We all loved the ZOO section which was an absolute credit to those who run the gardens. We pretty much spent the whole day there. There are so many spots for families to wander around with wide open spaces for the toddlers, and a great playground for the kids a lake where there are ducks and turtles to amuse the children, the display of different gardens such as the beautiful Japanese garden, and the indoor nursery with ferns, elks, stags and numerous other plant species. It's just a wonderful area of Rocky that caters to a wide variety of ages. And a fantastic Cafe to also cater to the public of varying ages. Was a fantastic day.