Wollangarra is an independent, non-profit organisation situated beside the Macalister River south of Licola, Victoria. Through outdoor education, Wollangarra aims to provide a small but vital step towards a healthier environment, a stronger community and happier young people. We believe that by doing rather than talking, and fixing rather than complaining, we can help young people to see environmental issues as exciting and demanding challenges to the way we live, rather than as endlessly depressing and negative threats to our future. Wollangarra is a unique and simple place. There is no electricity and access is via flying fox across the river. Everything is in the old style, including wood-fired stoves and boilers, open fire places and old gas lights. All of the materials used to build Wollangarra came in over the flying fox, were hauled through the river or were cut from the surrounding bush and shaped using traditional bush tools and skills. 1256 sleepers from the old Ghan Railway were used in the construction of the drop slab style homestead and the various outbuildings, as well as a mountain of other materials salvaged from 14 old houses that were demolished around Victoria. Hundreds of volunteers came from all over the state to take on the task of helping a project they believed in. The pioneer-style homestead accommodates up to 24 young people in a simple but comfortable way. There are no timetables or bells, watches or mobile phones. Wollangarra offers young people the chance get away from all that and discover the heart of Victoria’s high country in small, well-supervised hiking groups. They are then given the opportunity to return on follow-up programs and become part of an ongoing program of practical conservation in the nearby mountains.