Billabong Retreat is the creation of Paul & Tory von Bergen who purchased the land in 2008 and moved from their small 70m2 unit in Bondi to 44,000m2 of pristine Australian bush! Paul had been working in corporate marketing and after a business failure had found himself living in Thailand next to a yoga and health retreat and found his live transformed. Tory had been travelling around Australia in a combi painting abstract landscapes of the outback bush. They met at a yoga class in Bondi, hooked up, produced twin boys, put on Earth Festival and then Paul’s mum needlessly died. This triggered Paul & Tory to delay no further, put fear aside and follow their dreams. They bought Billabong shortly after.
After an extremely challenging process in securing approval, Paul designed and owner built the retreat himself, mainly due to lack of finances. It opened in 2010 with Tory cooking all the food and Paul teaching all the yoga and trying to look after the twins and their new arrival Jade in-between. It has grown a little since then.
The vision was to create a healing space to reconnect to nature, of ourselves, others and the nature around us. It is non religious and open to all people of any belief or background. It is a place to find peace of mind, contentment and discover wellness. Hopefully we have gone someway to achieving that.
