“If you want to write, take a walk. Take it again, sitting down at your desk.”

—Mark Tredinnick, The Little Red Writing Book

Way back when I was acquiring books for Allen & Unwin, I published George Seddon's Searching for the Snowy, a magnificent exploration of the highlands on the roof of Australia and the river that shapes them. Over the past years, as I write my book The Divide, Jodie and I have spent more and more time in the Divide near the Snowy at Beloka and Bungarby, Dalgety and Crackenback. Late last year, National Parks opened The Snowies Alpine Walk, a network of hiking trails on existing routes in the High Country.

All this has prompted me to put on a workshop where we walk some of these tracks in the Snowies and also sit and write. In classes and evening discussions, we'll consider deeply the beauty and dignity and difficulty and delight of our human relationship with the land, the obligations we owe to places like this and to those whose realm it was (and still is) long before colonial cultures claimed it—a thing I’ve written much about. (My essay “To Sing, to Say,” which first appeared in the Griffith Review in 2023, and which Dave Witty has included in his new anthology of Australian nature writing, On This Ground (Monash, 1 December 2024), tries to establish a sustainable ethos for coming into stolen country.)

The workshops will take place at a chalet in Pender Lea, which is close to the National Park, where the walks start, and my plan is to alternate days of walking and writing, combined with some guest talks about wildlife and history some evenings. 

“His is a bold, big-thinking poetry,” Andrew Motion said of my work once, “in which ancient themes (especially the theme of our human relationship with landscape) are re-cast and re-kindled.”  That could come in handy on the roof of Australia.

            Here’s the plan.  

When: 19 to 23 April 2025

Where and what: Half-day walks on Kosciuszko. The walks are not difficult or long, but they are grand. We’re planning three or four walks on Kosciuszko, to the Blue Lake, the Rams Head others, depending on weather and conditions. More detail soon.

Accommodation: The writing workshop will be held in a chalet at Pender Lea in Crackenback. Pender Lea has several accomodation options ranging from cabins to lodges that can be booked here, and Airbnb has many options for Thredbo, Jindabyne, Crackenback etc. Accomodation is not included in the registration fee.

How we’ll work: I want the walking and the mountain to do most of the talking, but of course, I'll be there to lead the conversation, set readings and prompts, workshop your pieces and guide your writing practice. We'll also have some guest speakers to get us across the ecology, histories, art and birds of the high country.

Extras: I’m assuming we’ll share some meals out (in Jindabyne or Thredbo) and some meals in, so you should budget for supplies. There’s a park entrance fee. Travel and fuel etc

     If you like the sound of all this, then register here and come along.

Total cost: $1500 each for five days: for the tuition and the walking experience. Plus extras (as above).