Words by Anthea Riskas Images supplied
The East Gippsland Walking Festival is a collaboration between local environmental enthusiasts, storytellers, entrepreneurs and former artists-in-residence, aiming to reactivate the towns surrounding the Gippsland Lakes.
All the creatives involved have spent time working and living on a purpose-built houseboat, aptly entitled FLOAT, that is permanently moored on Bung Yarnda – Lake Tyers’ Indigenous name – and are sharing their enthusiasm and individual responses to their experience.
The activities invite participants to experience the natural surrounds in a variety of interactive ways.
There’s a two-hour beach meander, where you pack a journal and marking tool, and record your sensory journey on the page, with storyteller and visual artist Sofia Sabbagh.
A Sound and Plant Walk will focus on edible, native succulents that grow around the lake and you will be accompanied by a downloadable musical score, composed by Dylan Martorell, that will make the flora you’re discovering audible as well as digestible!
The Cherry Tree Walk is an early evening event, that will literally take you back in time by discovering fossils and following and hearing the Indigenous stories of the estuary, as you stroll around with FLOAT curator Josephine Jakobi and Whadjuk/Balladong Noongar designer, researcher, Jack Mitchell.
Geology buffs can book the Red Bluff walk that will focus on what lies underneath the water, how it got there and where it’s headed in the current environmental climate.
Filmmaker Isaac Carné will be leading a nighttime forest walk, where it’s BYO torch, to light your way through the pitch-black bush to try and spot threatened species like the Yellow Belly Glider, Greater Glider or the Sooty and Powerful Owls.
A Plant Diary walk will teach you how to read the story of various fauna – from ancient trees to fresh saplings – gaining an understanding of how the individual environment dictates growth of the same species.
The analysis will then turn toward human parallels, with thoughtful discussion led by artist/curator/writer and Honorary Lecturer and Researcher at ANU School of Art and Design, Simon Cottrell.
The festival winds up on Sunday, 2nd April with a costume parade along the beach, soundscapes, afternoon tea, live music, and an invite to head along to the Water Wheel Tavern to feast on local produce and take in a last view of Lake Tyers while you ponder all that you’ve learned and experienced.
THE DETAILS
Who: School of Untourism
What: East Gippsland Walking Festival
When: 26 March – 2 April
Where: Lake Tyers
Bookings: HERE
We wish to acknowledge the Wadawurrung people as traditional owners of this land and to pay our respects to their Elders, past and present.
