Rewild Village- Rewild Your Child
Family Camp
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COME JOIN OUR REWILD VILLAGE
Camping together in a stunning bush environment we weave a basket of community, bringing together different elements: starry skies; misty mornings; swimming in pristine waters; cooking on campfires; looking after each other; playing games; singing and storytelling; tree climbing; bushcraft and so much more!
Summary.
Please note: this is proper wild camping. There is no alcohol on camp, no internet or power, we bathe in the river and there is a primitive drop dunny (with a lovely view).
The main house on the property has a landline/internet for emergencies.
Summary.
- Where: Budawang Wilderness Area, 1 hour inland from Milton, NSW South Coast.
- When: NSW school holidays. Each camp is 5 days. 6-8 camps each year, weather dependent. See dates page for specific camp dates.
- What: Wild camping in a village setting in the most incredible wilderness location. Camp on a pristine river with your whole family, bringing your own camping gear and food. No alcohol, phone reception, internet or electricity. There is a house with a landline on site for emergency contact.
- Rewild Your Child: Each morning kids and teens go out with awesome wilderness mentors for four hours to the super secret bush camp, learning how to be at home in the wild. They come back at lunchtime for an afternoon of free play before we all meet at night for stories around the fires.
- Rewild Village: While the kids are off getting dirty, parents can relax, climb mountains, float down the river, chat, whittle, make clay pots, read or snooze in the sun. Some optional structured activities. Evenings around the fires feasting, telling stories and singing.
- Costs: Family fee of $390 inc GST plus $650 inc GST per child participating in Rewild Your Child or $530 inc GST for the Teen Mentor Leadership Programme (16+, must have attended camp before).
- Dinners: Communal dinners available at $80 inc GST per person for the week. Vegan or Omnivore.
- What Do I Bring? Families are responsible for themselves - you bring your own camping & cooking equipment, food, water etc. (most folks drink the tap water that's straight from the wilderness river - it's that clean. But you may want to bring your own purification/filtration system). We send you guides on what to bring, how to cook etc.
- How Do I Sign Up? Once you've read the full description of the event and you know you're keen to come, just click the link to be taken to the sign up page. From there you'll select the ticket link. The registration form is attached to the ticket. Fill it in for your family, pay and join us in the wild places for the biggest, best adventure your family will be talking about for years.
Please note: this is proper wild camping. There is no alcohol on camp, no internet or power, we bathe in the river and there is a primitive drop dunny (with a lovely view).
The main house on the property has a landline/internet for emergencies.
READ ON FOR ESSENTIAL DETAILS ABOUT THE BLUEGUM EXPERIENCE
These camps are a 5 day family adventure with many parts, each designed to support your family on your journey to be at home in the wild. Here are those parts.
1. Rewild Village is our beautiful bush home for the week.
15-30 families camp together in a gorgeous wilderness location on a pristine river in Budawang country on the NSW South Coast for five days. There are usually between 50 and 60 kids on the camp, and 20 - 30 volunteer nature connection mentors to help the kids on their journey.
Adults may participate as much or as little in village activities as they choose. Chopping wood or veggies, bushwalks and river fun, morning zenthai yoga sessions and afternoon bird language study. You can snuggle up in the longhouse around a cup of tea, make a spoon or fire a clay pot in the campfire, or go on a mission of discovery, to be back in time to meet your happy, hungry, muddy kids after their morning of ad-ven-turrrrrrre.
Afternoons are for free play/relaxation, and in the evening the village reforms. We gather under the longhouse, around the fires, for a delicious communal meal, storytelling and awesome songs. Mid week there is a field fiesta with drumming, dressups and games.
2. Rewild Your Child is our groundbreaking nature connection programme, which runs every morning. All kids on camp between the ages of 3 and 15 attend.
Between 8:30am and 12:30pm, teens and mentors head up in their groups to the super secret bush camp the kids and mentors have built themselves, with ancestral movement monkey gyms and bush shelters and cubby houses, near a river for skipping stones and fishing in. They spend four hours in our school without walls, making new friends, and learning from the Bluegum Rewilding curriculum.
Your kids will learn the skills, and the attitude, necessary to feel truly safe and at home in the bush. They'll also absorb the 'meta-skills' for success in any environment, things like curiosity, communication, problem-solving, awareness, teamwork, resilience and responsibility. And they'll do all this while having the time of their lives, under the careful guidance of trained mentors.
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3. Mentors are a vital strand in the village basket.
These amazing humans are volunteers, and give their time, energy, love, skills and most importantly, their full attention to everyone on camp. We usually have one mentor for every two kids, an unheard of ratio in conventional programmes. This means there are enough mentors so each kid has quality attention from their mentors. We select mentors of all personality types, so whether your kid is shy and introverted or extroverted and highly social, neurotypical or neurodivergent, they get to see leaders like them, and also leaders at the other end of their spectrum.
4. The Teen Mentor Leadership Training programme is available for teenagers who have previously attended at least one camp.
It's important they've already been to camp so they understand the Bluegum culture. Our teen mentors have often grown up in the camps, and bring embodied wisdom to help the next generation.They camp in Mentor Alley and have to be at the mentor meetings, as well as go out with experienced mentors to learn howe to help younger people be at home in the wild. They also learn rapport based relating, communication in a group, are given extra responsibilities and contribute to the running of the camp.
5. Culture Keeper families are those who have been with us for many, many camps.
As such they are wisdom holders and in many ways help weave the culture of the camp for all of us. You'll find them chopping veggies, stirring food pots or rummaging through eskies to find some butter for a new family who forgot theirs. If the weather becomes dramatic, you'll see them digging trenches and banging in errant tent pegs, helping newbies with tarps, or hosting a gaggle of kids for an impromptu lunch. They're warm, generous and kind, and their contribution to camp culture cannot be overstated.
6. The bush kitchen is run by our resident elder, Su (aka Gangster).
Su presides over the cooking fires, and coordinates all the helpers as she wrangles five massive camp ovens with the evening meals bubbling away. Kids, parents and mentors stir the food and serve when the familiar call floats over the field.... DINNER ISSSSSS READDDDDDDYYYYYYYYYYYYY!!
7. Cameron and Amber are unsung heroes of the camp.
Cam and Bam have been supporting Gina and Lee and helping dream the next iterations of camp into being. They attended Rewild Village a few years ago and never left. Now we simply could not do it without them. They run the camps when Gina and Lee aren't available, and bring their own magic to the village.
8. Lee and Gina head up the camp most times, but without the many turning cogs that keep everything running smoothly, we would not be able to do what we do.
9. The location is one of the most stunning places you could ever visit.
Perched on the edge of the wilderness in Budawang country, we camp along a pristine river, surrounded by Byangee walls, where wombats graze and sugar gliders yip. This land cradles us, looks after us, challenges us and helps us grow. Every camp we fall in love with it a little more.
10. The village sings its own magic songs and nature is the biggest mentor of all.
The families who come are dedicated to bringing their children and themselves into deep connection, and the wilderness rewards them with ordinary miracles... a lyrebird performing his repertoire, tail like a fan-dance; deer moseying through the field all spotted and gorgeous; the sound of careless laughter from the pack of kids inventing a new game just because; a spontaneous jam turning into a singalong that lasts the afternoon, out in the sunshine. Kids bringing home tales of adventures, their faces striped with river mud, brandishing the bows and arrows they made, or proudly telling of the bush shelter they built, can I sleep out in it tonight please, mum, please?
The village is a place where we are kind to each other, no matter what. It's simple, but it works.
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Wow! Sounds great. How does it work?
Families are responsible for themselves - you bring your own camping & cooking equipment, food, water etc.
Most folks drink the tap water that's straight from the wilderness river - it's that clean. But you may want to bring your own purification/filtration system.
We send you guides on what to bring, how to cook etc.
Where: We camp together on a spectacular bush property that borders the Budawang Wilderness Area, about an hour inland from Milton.
Travel: Nearest town is Milton - 3.5hr drive south from Sydney. Once you turn off the tar, there is a 45 min bumpy logging trail to get you to Bhundoo. We recommend 4WD or AWD, although 2WD cars can make it.
When you get there, you'll see why it's worth it.
When: Click here for ReWild Village camp dates.
ReWild Village / Rewild Your Child runs for five days, in the NSW school holidays.
Cancellations
Payments are transferable ONCE to a future program when over 30 days notice is given. Refunds are given in full for cancellations more than 30 days before camp. When less than 30 days notice is given, your fee can be refunded minus the family fee (as we will have turned many people away to hold your place). A full refund will be given if you find another family to take your place.
Numbers are limited, so don't leave it till the last minute! (See Dates page to check availability)
If the idea of wild camping seems daunting, (or if you are coming as a single parent and it seems like a lot of work) give us a ring. We want to support you to come and although getting out of the city can be a bit of a mission, once there you will find yourself in a tribe - and that means we look after each other.
The three basic cabins on site are managed by Jo and Gary of Bhundoo Bush Cottages. Call 02 4478 8505 to chat about availabilities. NOTE: Cabins are rarely available.
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TESTIMONIAL
To give you more of an idea what it's like, here's what one of our long-term tribe mothers has to say about the camp:
"They say it takes a village to raise a child,
I have two boys, my two boys have busy parents.
Coming to spend half of their school holiday with our ReWild Tribe, we are all taken out of our busy life, time slows down, being outside is feeding the soul and awakening the senses, my boys get to run wild with other kids working as a team problem solving caring for each other, developing relationships and real life skills that seem to be over looked in the cattle yard playground of school.
Lee creates an atmosphere of integrity and authenticity when it comes to caring for kids; the challenges and activities they do are exciting, educational and extremely fun.
Lee puts 200% into all that he does with them including his endless dreamtime stories which have the kids gripping with anticipation and cackling like kookaburras.
There is a yearning in us all to be in a tribe.
The kids will thank you for reconnecting them to people and the teachings of nature.
For me and my boys, this has become a part of our lives and we love it.
Thanks Gina and Lee for creating such wonderful opportunities for my family." - Camilla
To give you more of an idea what it's like, here's what one of our long-term tribe mothers has to say about the camp:
"They say it takes a village to raise a child,
I have two boys, my two boys have busy parents.
Coming to spend half of their school holiday with our ReWild Tribe, we are all taken out of our busy life, time slows down, being outside is feeding the soul and awakening the senses, my boys get to run wild with other kids working as a team problem solving caring for each other, developing relationships and real life skills that seem to be over looked in the cattle yard playground of school.
Lee creates an atmosphere of integrity and authenticity when it comes to caring for kids; the challenges and activities they do are exciting, educational and extremely fun.
Lee puts 200% into all that he does with them including his endless dreamtime stories which have the kids gripping with anticipation and cackling like kookaburras.
There is a yearning in us all to be in a tribe.
The kids will thank you for reconnecting them to people and the teachings of nature.
For me and my boys, this has become a part of our lives and we love it.
Thanks Gina and Lee for creating such wonderful opportunities for my family." - Camilla
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We look forward to welcoming you to the village
Bluegum Bushcraft runs rewilding programmes on the NSW South Coast. We acknowledge the traditional custodians of this whole area, the Dharawal, Jerrinja and Yuin people. We acknowledge traditional custodians of the entire continent. We ask permission to help people, in the ways that way can, to deepen into their relationships with the living earth and walk with respect and deep listening.
We walk on stolen land and know that sovereignty was never ceded.
We walk on stolen land and know that sovereignty was never ceded.