Wild food expert Oliver Brown says, “Experiencing the beach isn’t just swimming between the flags and eating a Calippo on the way home.” Brown is one half of the duo behind the Seaside Foraging Tour in Clovelly, facilitated largely by the very entertaining Diego Bonetto – a professional forager and edible weeds activist. The tour shows 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.
We’re led around Gordons Bay to the Shark Point rock platform on the northern end of Clovelly. Diego and Oliver collect as we go and at regular intervals give comprehensive information about the goods they’ve picked up along the way. The group is a comfortable size so questions don’t feel overwhelming or distracting, and everyone joins in on the trading of information, people scribble wildly to retain as much as possible. We taste everything as we 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!