Firekeepers Spring Village Camp 2025

~SOLD OUT~

We can't wait to see you at our next Village Camp!

Kookookookahkahkah!!! Do you hear the call, wild ones?

The kookaburras are singing us home – back to country, back to community and back to connection! 

Our volunteer-led community model is thriving, dear friends, and we’re so excited to be blowing on the embers for our third rekindled Village Camp! 

This spring from 30 September - 4 October we will return once again to beautiful bushy Wurundjeri Country in Riddells Creek to reconnect with nature, ourselves, family and community. 

Heed the call and rediscover your inner wild.

Come alive with a vibrant community of humans.

Immerse yourself in the wonder and wisdom of nature. 

Gather by the campfire and learn earth-based skills. 

Watch your kids thrive in the wild. 

And most importantly – help us rekindle the village fire!

As always, this is a family friendly, drug and alcohol-free event, and everyone is welcome – from the freshest joeys to the wisest elders – diversity in the forest and the village is what we’re all about! 

Weaving our village ~ What to expect…

Our 2025 Spring Village Camp is an opportunity to gather once again, sink our roots deep into nature connection and allow the earth to support all aspects of our collective lives. Each camp is lovingly brought to life by the voluntary efforts of an organisational Nest and a mycelial network of volunteers who are passionate about continuing to weave connections to ourselves, each other and our magnificent wild world. This is our offering.

Let us welcome you to the village! 

You’ll arrive with your tent and camping gear to a warm bush welcome and settle into our beautiful surroundings as village life awakens around you. Over our time together, we will explore the natural world around us, create fire without matches, share earth-based skills, play games, share stories around the campfire, laugh and sing, and take a much-needed breath of fresh air.

Adults, kids, teens, parents, elders and littlies will all find magic to discover in the village. In the past, villagers have shared all sorts of skills and adventures! They’ve woven baskets from grass fibres, made fire without matches, practised listening to the language of birds, slept out in bush shelters, engaged their senses to follow tracks and signs of life in the wild, played wild games for hours, eco-dyed garments in a bubbling pot over the campfire and shared adventurous stories and song circles under the stars. Anything is possible in the village! What will we create together this spring?

Morning program: 

Each morning, awaken to the gentle, melodic tunes of our morning singers (or earlier to the morning chorus of local birds!) After breakfast, you’ll gather with the whole village for a check-in and a couple of community games before the kids and teens go their separate ways for a morning of play and adventure.

Kids venture into the wild with our experienced nature connection mentors to experience a free-flowing exploration of the surrounding bush. Together the mentors and kids immerse themselves in story and song, play games, follow their curiosity and creativity as they wander and explore, find animal tracks and practice wild skills and crafts. Over the days, they will open into a deep awareness of the wild world as they connect with plants, earth, animals and each other.

Adults will have the opportunity to create their own personal journey of adventure and discovery here in our village. Held by the fabric of our interconnected threads, amongst new friends and old, there’ll be plenty of time and space for sit spots and solo bush adventures, to share and practice earth-based skills and deepen their nature observation and ecological literacy. The archetypal ‘wild child’ will come alive through games, nature play and other spontaneous connective activities. Some folks might opt for deeply connective adult-sharing circles, a safer space to share how folks are really travelling.

Teens in our village will feel empowered to lean in and co-design their own journy. This spring, there will be plenty of opportunities for teens to work with mentors, weave their energy in with the adults, or be in service and support to younger kids. Our blossoming future adults will be invitedto follow their own interests and curiosities and deepen their nature-based skills and explorations.

Little ones who are still ‘in the pouch’ will gather together with their parents and other villagers to play and have adventures a little closer to camp. There will be some support available to provide activities for the little ones and assist parents who would like to participate in the adult program.

Afternoon:

With our village reunited after adventurous mornings, the afternoons are free-flowing. Villagers play with new friends, practice new skills, share their talents or just chill out. Some might wish to head off for a wander or take some quiet time to rest and relax.

The afternoons also provide an opportunity for us all to contribute to the smooth running of our village through village service, a practice in reciprocity that is at the heart of village life. Adults and kids alike willspend some of time contributing in to the smooth running of our village - from serving dinner to tidying up camp, lighting the evening fire to washing the communal dinner pots. We'll sing, chat and work together to keep the village humming!

Evening:

As the sun sets, the village is called by heartful song and delicious smells wafting from the communal kitchen, where our fabulous village volunteer chefs and assistants serve up a scrumptious and wholesome feast. Hungry villagers gather to share dinner around the fire and a natural storytelling space opens as the day’s tales of adventure and discovery and laughter bubble up to be shared. When the fire dies down and the stars come out tuckered-out little ones are sung off as they wander off to their tents. Some nights might lend themselves to after-dark bush adventures too, before sleeping close to the earth and waking to the morning chorus again.

Ticket pricing

As part of dreaming into what a sustainable community-led village camp looks like we have updated the ticketing model to be simpler and clearer.

All tickets for program participants (adults and children) are the same price, with a lower price for joeys (children who are too young to participate in the kids' program).

Prices for this camp are: 

Adult: $330

Child 4+: $330

Joey 3: $125

Joey 0-2: $50

All tickets - including volunteer tickets and joey tickets - include a contribution towards the Village Fund. The Village Fund celebrates the diversity of our community by acknowledging that not all of us have equally abundant access to funds. While some of us are able to support the village, others - including many of the essential volunteers and mentors who make camp possible - need the village's support to be able to gather with us and share their gifts. If this is you, and you need the support of the village, you can enter the code ‘fundme’ at checkout to have the Village Fund discount of $50 per ticket applied. For those finding themselves in a place of abundance, you can also make an additional contribution to the Village Fund at checkout 🌱

Bookings will close, when sold out or a week before Village Camp begins. 

Food

Communal self-catering

After its great success at Autumn camp, at this camp we will again be offering optional communal-self catering for dinner. Villagers wishing to participate will bring ingredients to contribute according to the theme for each night. Dinner will be prepared by our beautiful village volunteer cooks for each night of camp, supported by a chop and service crew announced at the beginning of each day. Communal evening meals will cater for vegan, gluten free and dairy free dietary requirements if notified on booking. Unfortunately we are not able to accommodate other dietary requirements at this time.

Villagers who do not wish to participate in communal self-catering for dinner are welcome to prepare their own meals and join us under the Willum to eat.

Villagers will need to bring all their food for breakfast lunch and snacks.

Communal kitchen

To support the new communal self-catering model, we have also created a rustic welcoming communal camp kitchen space where villagers came together to share the joys and gifts of food. Close to the heart of the village the communal kitchen is a space with some tables, gas burners, a small portable BBQ, some pots and pans, crockery, cutlery and tea making facilities (hot water, milk, tea bags). It will have a cool box but only for milk and any items to be donated for communal consumption.

You are welcome to contribute burners and cooking equipment to share; however, it is not a space for storing your own cool box/pantry or kitchen setup. Everything in the communal kitchen will be available for everyone to use on a first come first served basis.

Drinking water and ice

There is drinking water on site. Bring your own cool box if required (or organise to share one). Ice is available from Riddells Creek nearby, and an ice run will likely happen at some point mid-camp.

Camping facilities

Tickets include four nights of forest camping accomodation (with flushing toilets and hot showers!). Participants need to bring their own tent and camping gear (get in touch if you need some help here) - a suggested packing list is available here

Please be sure to bring tubs or bags to take your rubbish home with you as there are no facilities on site to manage rubbish. 

Volunteering and Support

Do you love stepping in to share your skills and lend a hand? Do you feel called to mentor our village youngsters in deepening their connection to the more-than-human-world? More than ever, we need your passion and presence to bring this camp back to life! 

If you are excited to jump aboard as a mentor or member of the village support crew, please fill out an expression of interest form.

I am interested in mentoring at a Firekeepers Village Camp. 

This spring, Firekeepers are offering a Mentor Immersion—a rich, earth-rooted journey into nature-based mentoring, with online gatherings, an in-person circle in Melbourne, and a weekend on the land. Those who take part are warmly invited to step into the village as mentors at Spring Village Camp, with their camp tickets included in the cost of the immersion—an offering of reciprocity and deepening.

Find out more about this training program.

We’re all so excited to be rekindling this fire with you, dear village!

In wild love and connection, 

The Nest - Tina, Ettie, Pru, Kirsten, Irais, Matt, Marisa, Jo and Eloise

For more details on how camp operates, prices, practicalities and the rekindled approach to a community-led camp, head to our website below.

https://www.firekeepers.com.au/