The Young and The Restless | Let there be light and learning

However, we eventually started trading them for other things happening on the same weekends, because as pretty as glowing coloured lights are against a pitch black sky, we were feeling like it was a case of seen-one-seen-them-all.

Of course, that’s not how it really is, but it’s how it felt.

So after a 12-month hiatus — getting our glowing light fixes with regular drives around the Shepparton CBD after dark; those twinkling trees will never not distract me with their charming allure — we booked tickets to the latest light ‘festival’ in the area.

What we discovered however, when we traversed the bush tracks along Bullanginya Lagoon — fed by the Murray River somewhere at the back of Barooga Sports Club — were several permanent and enthralling light, sound and artful activations that blew our minds.

Bullanginya Dreaming is described as a ‘Luna Light Journey’; and a journey it was.

A peaceful, mesmerising, interactive and educational journey like no other light festival we had seen before.

My boys are now 13, 15 and 16.

It’s hard to get them all excited and on the same page about any one thing with all their vastly different interests and motivations.

I had pulled the “it’s my birthday weekend” card on them when I sensed a little resistance to doing anything other than coming home to the heater and PlayStations after a long, cold week at school on a Friday night.

I told them I’d really like us to do this activity together as a family to celebrate (and that we’d get takeaway afterwards, which always seems to get the stragglers over the line).

I mean, how could they refuse such masterful motherly manipulation?

But by the time we’d journeyed through Bullanginya Dreaming on the shortest day of the year — the winter solstice — no-one was upset that I’d forced them to go anyway; rather, grateful they’d experienced it.

We arrived at Barooga Sports Club (the starting point of the experience) in time for our 6pm session and assembled outside the golf pro shop to board our courtesy bus to the beginning of the track.

The sky’s light quickly faded as kangaroos haphazardly skedaddled out of the mini-bus’ way, but not out of reach of its headlight beams.

I’m amused that even as Australians ourselves, who see kangaroos in volumes frequently in all manner of places, still somehow get excited when we’re the first to spot them, taking it upon ourselves to shriek maniacally and point enthusiastically about it like we’re foreigners seeing them for the first time in the wild.

Or is that just us?

A short trip got us to the start of the light journey where staff ran through some housekeeping and sent us on our way.

The ambitious but masterfully pulled-off installation has 12 captivating activations, with not only magical displays of light patterns but projections of flora and fauna imagery with voice recordings of Bangerang peoples’ storytelling on well-timed loops.

There’s mystifying music playing throughout from permanent weatherproof speakers at each exhibit, with the sometimes ominous, sometimes calming sound of the didgeridoo, depending on how it’s being played at the time.

There are rusted iron sculptures, some of which you can touch and spin, with detailed cutouts that cast shadows on to the ground when light shone through them and smoke spilled out of them, adding more illustration to the stories of Indigenous traditions.

Despite the cold — and trust me when I say I hate it — I was in no hurry to get to the end of the track and back on to a shuttle bus.

For once, I felt my restless self relax and absorb it all instead of letting my mind take over and race ahead, reciting to me the next things on that day’s to-do list (like it’s so well-known for doing).

It may be that in our time slot there were only about seven other people with the four of us and because you move through the journey at your own pace, the group quickly disbands once it embarks on its way.

I remember White Night in Shepparton bringing unprecedented crowds to the city, making it hard to move (and hard to breathe for the anxious ones among us, especially those attempting regular head counts of all the many kids in your party).

At Bullanginya, we were in the softly illuminated dark, in the bush, seemingly alone, wandering slowly and just plain enjoying the hypnotic lights and soulful sounds of the didgeridoo and clap sticks.

Given Bullanginya Dreaming is a permanent installation with no time limit tapping its toes at you to see it quickly, I’d imagine group sizes would be kept fairly small like this most of the time, possibly only swelling during holiday periods and long weekends.

But maybe not then either if it’s usually only open on Friday and Saturday nights, but open every night during school holidays. So there’s plenty of sessions to spread between groups, which will hopefully keep crowds to comfortable sizes.

Each of the 12 activations along the 1.8km track tells a story, which to fully absorb takes about four to five minutes at each, meaning the whole experience takes about 60 to 90 minutes.

But if you hang around chatting to the lovely staff at the end by the roaring firepit (while your kids sneak a couple more marshmallows than they probably should have while you were distracted), you might need to allow a few more minutes before boarding the roo-dodging bus back to the 19th hole at the Sporties.