Engaging Young People with the Mountains

The first half of the year has been wonderful at Wollangarra. We have been able to run all of our events and programs so far! The Staff have completed all of their training and are ready to take on any challenge. We have run some great programs already, some Holiday Stage 1 and 2 programs, some school programs and we also ran a sponsored program for Foundation House for refugees. The weather has been kind to us this year with many sunny autumn days so far. The river is still surprisingly low and clear for this time of year and although very cold, everyone is still enjoying having icy dips! The leaves have started to turn colour and some trees have lost their leaves all together. With a few more programs and Holiday programs to go before our July winter break, we are sure to see ~200 young people make their way through Wollangarra and into the mountains, reconnecting to the basic ways of living, cooking on fires and getting in touch with nature, each other and themselves. We also have our annual wood chop event coming from 10th-12th June and already we have a full RSVP list of over 40 people. Wollangarra is now starting to recover from Covid times and we are seeing the community come back together and more new young people visiting Woll. We have also had many volunteers come up for this first half of the year to support Woll and the Staff working here, great vibes all around. There are also big changes occurring on the flats, with a permaculture design plan in place for the property, the Woll garden is one of the things that is changing on the flats - a plan is currently being hashed out for a new garden space that requires less maintenance brings higher yields and can be used as effective learning tool for young people on sustainable living. We look forward to the rest of the year being just as fun and full of events and programs and are embracing this delightful winter weather!