Yoga walks for health benefits

SINCE launching in December, Yogabout Retreats continue to offer unique bushwalking and yoga getaway experiences.

While each retreat slightly varies from another, on any Yogabout Weekend Getaway facilitator Anne Warbrunn guides participants through a range of walking tracks such as the Goldfields Track, Wombat State Forest and Hepburn and Creswick Regional Parks.

As an experience yoga instructor herself, Ms Warbrunn said along with the walks, the retreats also have a focus on practicing yoga, flexibility and mindfulness.

“There’s a lot of yoga retreats out there but I wanted to bring out the bush walk side of things,” she said.

“What I encourage people to do when we go for a walk is to get out their heads, we spend so much time lost in our thoughts, we live life in our heads, so it’s good to bring some mindfulness back.

“Being in the forest with the increased oxygen levels, moving your body, really helps to lift you.”

After going through a serious bout of chemotherapy and having to leave her day job, Ms Warbrunn said she ended up doing a yoga course with her spare time.

“I did that here at the ashram and I loved it and was walking in the bush one day and thought, wouldn’t it be great to combine the two,” she said.

“I wanted to help people as well, because it’s helped me so much, yoga, walking and mindfulness and I would suggest that people get involved to improve their physical and mental health, and just to take some time out.”

Acknowledging a wide range of abilities, Yogabout offers a short, medium and long walking options as well as catering to both beginner and advanced yoga levels.

Accommodation options for the retreats include the Yoga Ashram just 15 minutes from Daylesford as well as the Continental House in Hepburn Springs both including meals made from home grown produce.

“The beauty of what I’m offering is that you can experience the ashram, but in a way of observing it, because we are using it as a venue so to not be intimidated by it,” she said.

“All the food is healthy, at the ashram it’s vegetarian, it’s good to have a break from sugars and alcohol and have a feel-good break.”

For more information on the retreats or to book a place, visit yogabout.com.au.