There are plenty of ways to experience Mallacoota during the Wild Harvest Seafood Festival, which is running from Friday, September 25 to Sunday, September 27.
Whether that be tasting the catch at the market, getting out on the water, meeting the people who make their living from the sea, listening to live music, exploring the coastline or settling in for a long lunch with friends.
But this year, the festival is inviting visitors to experience Mallacoota in two particularly special ways: on the big screen and on foot with a Budawang Elder.
On Saturday morning from 11am-12.30pm, Wild Harvest heads indoors for a different kind of journey.
At the Mudbrick Pavilion, White Rock will be screened alongside the debut of Follow the Water, a short film made especially for this year’s festival.
White Rock takes viewers beneath the surface to explore one of the Great Southern Reef’s less visible environmental challenges: the spread of urchin barrens and the impact they have on kelp forests.
It brings together science and seafood, asking us to think differently about the relationship between what we harvest and the health of the marine ecosystems that produce it.
Then comes Follow the Water, which meanders through Mallacoota’s waterways and into the lives of fishers, divers, families and people who have travelled from around the world only to put down roots here.
It is, in many ways, a portrait of the place behind the festival; a place where wilderness and community sit side by side, where the sea is not simply something to look at but something people work on, live beside, learn from and care deeply about.
There’s a delicious connection between the films and the festival itself: the screening will be accompanied by fresh sea urchin tastings, bringing the story back from the screen and onto the plate, weather permitting.
On Sunday morning, join Noel Butler, a Budawang Elder from the Yuin Nation, for the newly released Bush Foods Walk.
Noel is a qualified teacher, educator, mentor, horticulturist, chef and historian, who alongside his wife Trish has spent more than 35 years teaching and sharing knowledge with Aboriginal and non-Aboriginal communities.
On a gentle walk around Mallacoota, Noel will introduce participants to the land from a First Nations perspective, sharing knowledge of plants used for food, medicine and survival, and exploring the relationship between First Nations people and Country.
It’s a chance to slow down and look more closely at a landscape many of us might otherwise simply walk through, the organisers say.
For Wild Harvest, that connection feels particularly important – the festival has always celebrated what comes from the sea, but the idea of wild harvest extends far beyond the waterline.
It encompasses the knowledge of Country, the plants and landscapes that sustain people, and the generations of knowledge that teach us how to understand and care for the places we call home.
The Bush Foods Walk with Noel Butler runs from 10am to 11.30am, meeting at Mallacoota Lions Park.
It is a ticketed event, so booking ahead is recommended.
The full program for this year’s Wild Harvest Seafood Festival is available at the festival’s website.
