Wildcrafting Winter Weekend
June 13–15, 2025 | Clunes, Victoria
“Don’t just look at nature from afar – saturate yourself with it. Get out on the edge of life and let the waves of the wilderness wash over you.”
Step into a weekend woven with earth, fire, story, and community. Under the wide open skies and views of volcanoes of central Victoria, we will gather to rekindle our deep belonging to the land — through hands-on crafts, myth-telling by the fire, nature connection and rewilding activities.
Come camp on Dja Dja Wurrung Country at La Fleur de Soul, a private permaculture property near Clunes. Together, we will move slowly, craft thoughtfully, listen deeply, and tend the sacred threads of connection between earth, self, and community.
Our weekend will include:
2 nights camping and accommodation on stunning private bushland
A range of take home earth skills and practices
2 Dinners cooked with love using locally sourced produce
“Skill is a visible form of prayer.”
Facilitators:
The weekend will be guided by earth-crafters, storytellers, and long-time students of nature’s ways
Yonke Van Geloven & Mike Hall
Yonke Van Geloven:
Yonke is a farmer, permaculturalist, and passionate nature connection facilitator and vision quest guide based on Dja Dja Wurrung Country, central Victoria. As a single mother of three, she stewards a 20-acre permaculture property where she weaves together regenerative land practices, storytelling, and community ritual. Her work invites others into deeper relationship with the land and their own wild selves.
Yonke’s facilitation style is grounded, playful, and deeply intuitive. She completed Nature’s Apprentice Nature-Based Leadership Training in 2021 and brings a wealth of lived experience in bushcraft, fibre arts, and earth-based ceremony. She is especially passionate about guiding others to reconnect with ancestral skills and the rhythms of the natural world, inviting people to slow down, listen, and remember their place in the great web of life.
Mike Hall:
Mike is a wanderer and educator based on Dja Dja Wurrung Country in central Victoria, where he explores deeper connection with the more-than-human world and his role in these times of great change. His daily life is rooted in family — as a husband, father, dog companion, and garden tender — and he’s usually barefoot, until winter gets serious.
After stepping away from mainstream classrooms, Mike specialised in Outdoor and Environmental Education, Youth Work, and Place-Based Experiential Learning. With the support of dedicated teaching teams, he has mentored hundreds of young people to deepen their relationship with the natural world, engage with Indigenous perspectives, and step into their own role in caring for the Earth and all life.
He completed the Nature’s Apprentice Nature-Based Leadership Training in 2022, and continues to walk a path of learning and reconnection. Mike is passionate about mentoring others to rediscover their innate relationship with the human and more-than-human worlds — believing that tuning in to our instinctual, wild selves is vital for both personal and planetary wellbeing.
Activities include:
Hand-building ground oven
Basket weaving with natural fibres
Tanning rabbit skins and creating a rabbit skin pouch
Creating a meal together in a ground oven, with lamb from the farm & foraged greens
Rituals & offerings to the land
Storytelling, myth & song around the fire
Morning movement practices
Mount Beckworth forest outing, exploring nature connection practices
Evenings will be spent circling the fire, sharing food, stories, and simple joys under a stunning view of the stars.
Byo:
Camping/sleeping gear
Breakfasts/lunch/snacks
Appropriate all-weather clothing
Meals:
Friday night: Pizza feast (BYO toppings or share what’s available)
Saturday night: Communal dinner provided (lamb roast with a hearty vegetarian option)
Breakfasts and lunches: BYO
Tea, coffee, and light snacks provided throughout the weekend
Facilities:
Bush camping (BYO gear)
Composting toilets
Cozy shed and campfire spaces for warmth
No showers — welcome the wild!
Contribution:
Your contribution supports preparation, materials, firewood, meals, and farm use.
$475
Families:
This program is 15yrs+ created for adults and suitable for all levels of experience.
“There is human time, and there is wild time.”
Schedule Overview:
Arrival: From 4pm Friday, June 13
Closing: 4pm Sunday, June 15
Location: La Fleur de Soul, Clunes (30 minutes north of Ballarat)
Come slow down, make with your hands, sit with the land, and remember the ancient songs your bones still know.
We can't wait to share this sacred weekend with you.
Cancellation Policy:
Refunds available until 14 days before course starts, minus $25 admin fee.
After this point if you can no longer attend, we cannot offer refunds but you may sell or gift your ticket at no extra cost. Please let us know the name and email address of the person who will be taking your place.