Stressed As? Perhaps You Need to Spend Some Time in a Small Space in the Bush

There’s something about seeing wombats waddle in front of your car while driving on a dirt road at night time that really restores your faith in there being life outside of work and your phone. It’s such a magical sight you probably won’t even want to take a photo. It’s also something you may encounter en route to an Unyoked cabin. This particular scenario happened when I headed to Miguel, Unyoked’s NSW Southern Highlands outpost. It’s about two hours from Sydney and let me tell you, it’s well worth the Friday arvo, post-intense-work-week drive.

Unyoked was founded by Cam and Chris Grant, brothers who were “yoked” (caught up, busy, stressed, too many commitments, spreadsheets) and wanted to create a place for people to chill out. In 2016 they founded their company (which currently consist of six cabins, three near Sydney and three near Melbourne) so that us busy folk can scooch off and escape to nature; somewhere we can, hopefully, log off and forget about our phones.

But back to the important bit: the wombats. Turning off the main road and onto the dirt was just about the best thing I did all week. We had to stop the car every few hundred metres to open and close gates – the cabins are on farms, in forests, down private valleys – and with every gate we gained a degree of unyoking. I really can’t reiterate it enough: there were wombats everywhere and the further we got, the further away from normal life and busyness we travelled.

After a short drive we parked the car and walked the rest of the way to the cabin. When we got there the doors were wide open. At first it was a little confronting – what about the mosquitos! The thieves! Snakes? Soon we realised, of course, that was irrational. We were about as alone as someone who doesn’t watch Game of Thrones. It was freeing, and being vulnerable made me realise we should and can care less.

“The burnout is so common,” Chris says. “You’re constantly reacting to things that don’t really matter when really you just need to step back, take some perspective and realise that these are quite small things. And getting out to nature gives you that perspective.”

That idea is well and truly engrained in one of Unyoked’s latest initiatives: the Prescription to the Wilderness. It’s pretty much a gift voucher you can buy for a mate, or for yourself, that looks exactly like a script you’d get from the doctor, only these scripts are for ailments such as eating lunch one-handed so the other can be used to type, or for feeling phantom phone vibrations. The prescribed medication? Time in nature.

While the concept is a bit tongue-in-cheek there is also a very serious side to it: raising awareness about the benefits of nature and getting outdoors and off our mobile devices. It checks out IRL, too. “We’ve seen around the world doctors are prescribing people time outside and time in nature … for a whole array of things: mental and emotional things as well as physical illnesses and diseases.”

It sounds so attainable, getting outside, but really immersing yourself in nature is difficult if you live in a city. Sure, you can go for a run, a hike even, but getting really comfy in nature isn’t the easiest these days.

When we settled into the cabin for the night, a rather shocking urge to draw the curtains or shut the bedroom door to black everything out, or put on an eye mask, came over us. But deciding to be on show in the forest was a good one, and eventually we were trying to figure out how to build our own cabin. After not long, the city fell away and creativity flooded in.

“We’re not saying you should do either-or [stay in the city or move to the country],” Cam says. “You should definitely get up and walk around the [city] block, you should stare outside your window and look at the clouds, but the reason we chose cabins is that they facilitate a number of uses. You can meditate, cook or build a fire and get more primitive. You can hike or tap into creative parts you struggle to in the rat race. It’s more immersive and impactful to be surrounded in nature.”

unyoked.co