Arguably the hallmark event of the Festival of Fungi, the workshop and foray with Alison Pouliot is always the first event to sell out. Hosted at the Strathbogie Memorial Hall (now complete with fancy reverse cycle heaters), the event is an entertaining way to learn about our unique Australian fungi, its relationship with other fauna and flora, and its interactions with humans. Alison covers a broad spectrum, with her talk touching on history and how the initial settlers viewed Australia’s fungi through a very narrow, European lens. The comparisons between Australian attitudes and behaviours around fungi versus those in modern day Europe are fascinating, with fungi seemingly embraced much deeper into other cultures than ours. Fungi is already a strange, obfuscated world, and Australians are more cautious of their local fungi than our overseas counterparts.
That’s not to say that views aren’t changing though. The depth of knowledge and enthusiasm amongst attendees is immense, and Alison herself notes that attitudes within Australia have drastically changed to become more open and curious since she’s been involved in mycological studies. Fungal based processes and products are even being embraced by tech start-ups, mostly due to the vast untapped potential of fungal mechanisms to solve unique problems that can’t be solved by mechanical or bacterial means.
After a delicious lunch provided by A3 Hospitality, fungi enthusiasts set off for Mount Wombat, the spiritual home of fungi exploration in the Bogies. Unfortunately for everyone, it’d been an exceptionally dry autumn with no significant rainfall, so the usually bountiful forest was devoid of all but a few very old or very tiny fungi. People weren’t deterred however, and managed to find a few examples of less obvious fungi to study.
