“Experiencing the beach isn’t just swimming between the flags and eating a Calippo on the way home,” says wild food expert Oliver Brown. He is one half of the duo behind the Seaside Foraging Workshop in Clovelly, facilitated largely by the very entertaining Diego Bonetto – a professional forager and edible weeds activist.
The pair are hosting another family-friendly summer workshop, which will show you that buying a Calippo from a beachside kiosk is a waste of cash as seaside snacks are growing in the surf fringes, lawns and rock platforms right where you swim. The workshop’s aim is to gift you with the knowledge to identify medicinal and edible plants growing all around us. You’ve been sitting on a patch of warrigal greens this whole time! You can eat dandelions! You just need to know where to look.
You will be led around Gordons Bay to the Shark Point rock platform on the northern end of Clovelly. Diego and Oliver will collect sea prizes at regular intervals and give comprehensive information about the goods they’ve picked up. Question are welcomed, and everyone can join in on the trading of information. You will get to taste everything as you go, from tangy rock samphire to lemony dock leaves and freshly plucked urchin gonads – with an invigorating side of rockpool-fresh sea lettuce and garlic-preserved turban snail. Delicious!