Woogaroo Creek

Wugaru, meaning 'whirlpool', in the Yagara language.

Information from  City of Ipswich Waterway Health Strategy, 2020

The sub-catchment area of Woogaroo Creek and its tributaries, Mountain Creek and Opossum Creek, is 69km2 (40km2, 14km2 and 15km2 respectively), of which 65km2 is within the Ipswich LGA. The waterways flow north from the White Rock – Spring Mountain Conservation Estate through the suburbs of Springfield, Springfield Lakes, Redbank Plains and Goodna.

Woogaroo Creek and Mountain Creek both flow through bushland for more than 5km. Both systems consist of sections of waterway with continuous and discontinuous channel forms. Opossum Creek only flows through bushland for a short distance before entering a large online impoundment in the suburb Springfield Lakes. Opossum Creek continues as a small continuous channel downstream of the impoundment, the shape and form reflective of reduced flows due to the impoundment.

Land use within the sub-catchment is a mixture of urban and vegetated, with the upper catchment retaining significant tracts of bushland. The Springfield development area is within the Woogaroo Creek sub-catchment which includes a large town centre and urban residential land. Linear open space corridors are provided along the main waterway as part of this development and there are a large number of open water bodies within these corridors.

Large areas of the waterway corridor flow through council parks and reserves, providing the community good opportunities to access the waterway. There are also a number of council partnerships with landholders and community-driven initiatives.

Special features of the catchment include:

• Platypus sighted and detected within Woogaroo and Opossum creeks
• Important area for securing urban Koala populations
• Flinders-Karawatha regional corridor
• Indigenous artefacts.