Oxley Creek Common Walk

Oxley Creek Common is 115 hectares of wetland, grassland and hoop pine forest wedged between Sherwood Road and the creek, opposite the Brisbane Markets at Rocklea. The tracks are flat, wide and gravel, and cattle graze parts of the common, which is the single fact that decides how you walk a dog here.

The walk

AllTrails records about 6 km for the full circuit, rated easy, a bit over an hour at walking pace. Within that, the signed Pelican Island walk is a lighter 3.5 km return from the trailhead, so you can pick a shorter version off the map board rather than committing to the lot. There is no climbing anywhere. The birdlife is the headline for the two legged crowd: the common is one of Brisbane's better birdwatching sites, with well over 200 species recorded on the floodplain.

Leash status

Brisbane City Council manages the common and dogs are on lead on the walking tracks. A fenced off-lead area sits near the car park if your dog needs a run first, and it is a genuinely useful one rather than a token patch. Cattle graze the open paddocks and the tracks run straight through them, so the lead is not a formality on this walk. If cattle are standing on or near the track, give them room and walk wide rather than pushing between them. A curious young steer will follow a dog, and that is how a calm walk turns into a bolt.

Pepsi: met a cow the size of a car from the safe end of my lead. Decided we are friends at exactly that distance.

Water

Drinking fountains near the car park serve people and dogs. The wetlands are not for swimming and there is no safe creek access on the walk, so fill up before you head out on the longer loop.

Hazards

Snakes are present and the grass beside the tracks grows long in the warmer months, so keep the lead short along the overgrown edges. The grazing sections have almost no shade, which matters more than the distance does on a Brisbane summer day. This is a low-lying active floodplain, and after heavy rain parts of the track flood and stay boggy for days. The common has been fully submerged in major Brisbane floods, which tells you how quickly conditions can change out here.

Getting there and parking

Free parking sits off Sherwood Road, Rocklea, just past the markets. The Red Shed near the car park has composting toilets, gas barbecues and picnic tables, which makes the common work as a half-day outing rather than a lap-and-leave. Bus routes 598 and 599 stop nearby if you are arriving without a car.

When to go

Early morning is the only serious option in summer, before the open paddocks heat up. The common also empties of shade-tolerant walkers early anyway, so you get the birdlife at its busiest. Winter and the shoulder seasons are comfortable at any hour, and the floodplain smell is friendliest after a dry week rather than straight after rain.

Close by with the dogs

The fenced area at Sherwood dog park covers the off-lead quota for the day, and the Archerfield Wetland upstream at Oxley offers more flat floodplain walking on the same creek. Sundays Cafe at Rocklea is the nearest coffee stop back towards the markets.

Our Queensland trails page lists more dog-friendly walks, and the Sherwood destination guide covers the local area.