Illawarra Nature Festival

Friday 12th & Saturday 13th September 2025
The Servo, Port Kembla / Dharawal Country

September is Biodiversity Month and to celebrate the incredible diversity of plants and animals in the Illawarra we have an exciting line up of talks, workshops, film, music and art to inspire and light up your senses!

Food available from Balinese Spice Magic, drinks from The Servo.
FREE ENTRY - RSVP for your free ticket!

Fri 12 Sept 5pm - 10pm

Designed for adults, supervised children welcome.

5pm - 10pm	Encounter The Grassening Living Installation \| Sound \| Drawing \| Workshops in the NASA Gallery - an installation of living grasses and forbs amplified with sound, drawing, and multimedia.
5:30pm - 6:15pm	Wildlife Detectives - Panel Discussion How do you find a koala, platypus or a tiny microbat? Dive into the science of investigating the cryptic lives of wildlife in the Illawarra, from environmental DNA sampling to ecoacoustics and drone monitoring. Hear from local experts including Beth Mott from the NSW Department of Climate Change, Energy, the Environment and Water and Trudy Costa from Wollongong City Council.
6:15pm - 6:45pm	Smoking ceremony and invitation to walk through The Grassening installation in the NASA Gallery.
7:30pm - 9:00pm	Screening of The Message of the Lyrebird film, a multi award-winning Australian documentary about a bird who holds the stories of our landscapes.
9pm - 10pm	Music with Russell W in The Grassening installation in the NASA Gallery.

Sat 13 Sept 1pm - 6pm

Designed for all ages, family-friendly activities.

1pm - 6pm	Encounter The Grassening in the NASA Gallery - an installation of living grasses and forbs amplified with sound, wall drawing, and multimedia.
1:15pm - 5pm	Drop into the rolling 15 minute Nature Talks and hear about everything from native bees nesting underground to threatened fungi, snake vemon and frog fertility.
1pm - 2:30pm	Nature journals & urban nature treasures with Penny Sadubin. Drop-in and create a pocket-sized nature journal to take home with artist Penny Sadubin. Pick up a prompt sheet and see what urban nature treasures you can observe around the Servo; plants in cracks, bees on the go, a shady tree, the sound of passing birds…what will you encounter?
3pm - 4:30pm	Drop-in Tentacular Inter-species Story Mapping with Kathryn and Katrin, Understorey. A collaborative zine-making workshop all about human + more-than-human friendship on Dharawal, Illawarra! Drop in and tell a story through drawing, writing or speaking.
1pm – 2pm	Hands-on one hour workshop - grow native plants in pots with Narelle Happ, A Garden For Life.
2.30pm – 3.30pm	Hands-on one hour workshop - build a garden from native plants in pots with Narelle Happ, A Garden For Life.
1pm – 5pm	Drop-in hands-on poetic activities with Red Room Poetry. Delve into the understory of the poem forest and create a poem inspired by nature.
2pm, 3pm and 4pm	Join Wollongong City Council Natural Areas team for a 15-minute ‘Weed Wacker’ workshop, where you’ll learn to spot key problem weeds in our local area and discover simple, effective ways to control them, making way for our beautiful native species to thrive.
1pm - 5pm	Stalls and hands-on activities with Illawarra Ecosystems and Threatened Species team, LandCare Illawarra and Green Connect, Wollongong City Council’s Environmental Volunteer Programs and Wollongong Botanic Garden, Shellharbour City Council’s Natural Areas and Environment teams, Australian Native Bee Association and Ecological Interactions Research Team from Western Sydney University, One Million Turtles, WIRES and ORRCA.

The venue / event has limited capacity and will have a rolling attendance throughout the day. Certain presentations and spaces within the event may reach capacity and it is recommended to arrive early for any presentations / activities you are excited to see to avoid missing specific seating or space for those particular times. Audio from the talks will be broadcast across the full venue to allow others to tune in from outside

Outdoor elements of this event are subject to weather conditions. In the event of adverse weather, some activities and workshops may be modified or cancelled.

Please note, event is all ages but u/18's must be accompanied by a parent / legal guardian.

This is a community-led event supported by the Illawarra Ecosystem and Threatened Species Team, Department of Climate Change Energy, the Environment and Water.