We make it easy to relax
The architect-designed yoga retreat, Griffins Hill, is set within a landscaped garden two kilometres from Dunkeld in the Grampians, Victoria, Australia.
Take Your Yoga Practice to the next level
Immerse yourself in a week of life changing yoga and healthy food5 Day Inversion Retreat
Perfect!Healthy Weekends Away
Beginners to AdvancedPerfect-Gift
Renew and revive
Enjoy this beautiful time of the year practicing yoga, walking with scrumptious healthy foodDeepen and reinvigorate your yoga practice
Wonderfull Vegetarian foodFresh start
Perfect!Eight Week Yoga Courses
Beginners to AdvancedUpcoming Retreats
Exploring the other side of yourself with backbends By Frank Jesse
As a group of poses, backbends seem to stir strong emotions. Some people absolutely love them. For others, a class focusing on backbends triggers fear and uncertainty. With preparation and guidance, backbends are uplifting and energising. They give us back the energy we put into them, leaving us feeling invigorated and happy. " ….. emotionally there is no chance for a person who does backbends to ...
Meet Tiger Lily, an Eastern Grey Kangaroo, who made Griffins Hill Yoga Retreat her home
Tiger Lily took up residence in November 2016 with her mother, who was blind. Blindness in kangaroos can be caused by a virus that is spread by small midges and has been associated with intermittent episodes of deaths of large numbers of animals.Tiger Lily's mummy, (who I called Chocolate Lily because the day she arrived I found the first indigenous Chocolate Lily in my garden ) was an annual visi...
A hidden problem: Men’s pelvic floor
Women often report pelvic floor problems after childbirth. But men have a pelvic floor too (of course) and sometimes it needs special attention in yoga. My friend John, a regular guest at Griffins Hill, was diagnosed with prostate cancer shortly after his Easter holidays a year or two ago. John's a private person, but he kindly agreed for me to write about his experience so he could help ot...
Discovering our true nature through mindful yoga practice
We all have our favourite yoga poses, don't we? But how many of us make a favourite of a particularly challenging posture, one that makes us feel uncomfortable, uncertain and, well, not very good at yoga?Making friends with the postures that are difficult for us to do is an integral part of yoga because it delivers us straight to the heart of the real purpose of yoga: awareness or mindfulness. Whe...
Yoga asanas -- Starting a home practice -- a step along your Yoga Sadhana (yoga path)
By Frank Jesse Over 1700 years ago, the ancient Indian sage, Patanjali, listed the obstacles or impediments to developing a regular yoga practice in the yoga sutras, sutra 1.28: "disease, inertia, doubt, heedlessness, laziness, indiscipline of the senses, erroneous views, lack of perseverance and backsliding." Not much has changed. For a beginner student, and even some more experienced students, s...
Kookaburras nest in our old gum tree By Jane Gibb
A couple of years ago, she dropped a big dead branch and I noticed a hollow start to form in her trunk where the branch used to be. For ages now, her branches have been home to a pair of kookaburras, who love to sit and cackle on her branches. Sometimes, when they start up, I wander down the hill to listen to their laughter. A home in the hollows Recently, I noticed some downy feathers around the ...
The return of the dancing brolgas to our Western plains wetlands By Jane Gibb
Swamps recover well from environmental damage. For example, a project to regenerate Scale Swamp, which covers about 100 hectares just south of Dunkeld, has had an incredible impact. Since 2014, the swamp has regained enough water to start attracting the brolgas and swans back. There is a lovely series of photos showing the change here. And it's not only birds that return; frogs and waterbugs...
Miles the emu
As you know, I am a kangaroo advocate, and several of these wonderful creatures seek refuge on my property from the local shooters. But who knew the word was spreading through the emu population that I love all animals and not just kangas. One of our guests, Andrea*, popped outside early one morning in June to take photos. Standing with the camera glued to her eye, she was astonished to see an emu...
What is Iyengar Yoga? by Kimina Lyall
You know you are an Iyengar Yoga student if you find yourself refolding blankets that have been folded incorrectly, or if you notice and rectify messy ends. You find yourself doing this quietly, while you are waiting for other instructions or while you are preparing to enter a pose. You know you are practicing Iyengar Yoga because you care about the blankets. You care about the blocks, the bolster...
Why every yogi must take care of the environment By Frank Jesse
Like most people, I became a yoga teacher because I love the practice. I love its impact on my physical and mental health and the way it benefits my students. I still love that. However, I have become more and more aware of the need to include care of the environment in the way we manage our retreat here at Griffins Hill. We have always done that, but it feels more urgent than ever before. And all...
