The Raft and the Yabby

It begins simply: a small group of people, a farm dam on Peramangk Country in the Tanunda Hills of South Australia, and a floating raft of reeds.

The Raft and the Yabby is narrative nonfiction at its most quietly powerful. What begins as a practical act of environmental restoration, that is, building a reed raft to improve the health of a dam, unfolds into something far more resonant: a meditation on retirement, purpose, and the unexpected ways community holds people together.

At the heart of the story is Mick, navigating the transition out of a life defined by structure and service. As he and a handful of others work side by side in the mud, conversations arise naturally. The kind that don't happen easily face to face, but flow when hands are busy. Grounded in real places and real experience, the book explores how shared, practical work creates the conditions for what some academics call "side-by-side wellbeing" the quiet, powerful support that emerges when people simply show up together.

And beneath the surface of the dam, patient in the mud? A yabby. A small sign that something is already living, already resilient, already there.

This book is also a companion resource. Alongside the narrative, The Raft and the Yabby includes reflective essays on men's mental health and informal support networks, discussion guides, book club questions, and a community conversation tool. This makes the book equally at home in a reading group, a Men's Shed, a Landcare gathering, or a health practitioner's hands. It is written for anyone who cares about the wellbeing of the people around them, and for the communities... the volunteer brigades, conservation groups, neighbourhood networks, that hold those people quietly together.

Rooted in the landscapes and rhythms of regional South Australia, with deep respect for First Nations Country, The Raft and the Yabby is a gentle, grounded reminder that land and people recover the same way: slowly, together, and often through the smallest of acts.