Connection to Country Pilgrimage APRIL 2026

Name: Connection to Country Pilgrimage APRIL 2026
Start: 2026-04-23T08:00:00+09:30
End: 2026-04-29T12:00:00+09:30
Location: Watarrka National Park

Schedule

Thu, 23 Apr, 2026 at 08:00 am to Wed, 29 Apr, 2026 at 12:00 pm

UTC+09:30

Location

Watarrka National Park | Alice Springs, NT

Connection to Country Pilgrimage 2026!!!! Have finalised!!!
23rd -29th of April
Alice Springs – Lilla Community – Uluru

To all women,
This is an invitation back to country…
Back to the Ancient lands of Australia where a memory lives deep in the land, where the wide-open skies and desert fires hold you
Here we reconnect to the heart of ourselves, each other and the land we call home.
Where the songs, the stories and the dance of thousands of years are still alive and strong
This is a calling to women who want to connect deeply to culture.
Who are wanting to listen to our traditional owners and to be escorted through their precious country and their sacred sights together.
This is a rare opportunity as women to come together to drop into the spaciousness of the desert where we craft, sing, swim and walk country. This is an opening to bring change into your life, to bring something to country and allow the whispers of your inner voice to reveal it self. This is a timeless space where we listen deeply to country and have the privilege to receive the Tjukurpa (creation stories) of the Matutjara ladies of Lilla community and the Traditional Owners of Uluru.

This is a 7 day / 6 night journey

When and where we begin?
Our seven days and six nights, we begin our journey in Alice Springs before travelling out to the
majestic Lilla community which is the in the Watarrka National Park. Lilla is an Aboriginal out-station that is an Aboriginal run eco-tourism education centre, this will be our home-base for 4 days. Guided by my self and the senior women of Lilla, we’ll walk on sacred land, sit in the stillness, and let country speak to us. Words can’t capture the magic here — it’s something you feel with your whole being.
This land has been an integral part of my journey over the last 11 years and it is a deep honour to guide people through Central Australia, introduce them to the potency of this land and walk along side the Matutjara and Yankunytjatjara ladies. I truly know this pilgrimage to be apart of the reconciliation work for Australia. I will be facilitating this Pilgrimage along side the remote tours team.
Accommodation & Details
We will be sleeping in swags under the stars, each woman will have their own safari tents for storing belongings and for those who prefer to sleep inside.

Exchange:
• $3300 Early Bird until January 25
• $3500 from January 15 onwards
Payment plans are available please inquire

A small group size ensures intimacy and respect for Country and community, so spaces are limited.
If you feel called to join, please reach out and complete the Expression of Interest form below. Once received, we can organise a call to connect, answer questions and get to know each other:
Expression of Interest Form: https://6cmil3n673q.typeform.com/to/Pe8mEclc
What’s Included:
✔ 1 x induction/intro call
✔ 3 x Integration call
✔ Accommodation throughout the journey
✔ All meals during
✔ All activities and experiences, including movement practices, sound journey, and cultural immersions with Traditional Owners
✔ Group transfers during the PILGRIMAGE itinerary
Additional Costs:
✘ Flights to and from the starting/finishing point
✘ Travel insurance (required)
✘ Traditional Nnangkari healing at Uluru

I look forward to bringing together a beautiful group of women for this journey.

The only prerequisite is an open heart.

**I would be really appreciative if you could share with women who may be interested in this experience allowing the organic nature for the word to spread and for it to find the women who are needing and feeling the calling to this experience.
Testimonials from other pilgrims below of their experience.

A bit about me:
Lucia Swift is dedicated to honouring the wisdom and transformative power of sacred traditions, guiding others on a journey of deep connection, healing, and self-expression.
For over 15 years, she has immersed herself in the profound healing potential of sound and song, learning from wisdom keepers across Central and South America and Central Australia. Her work integrates these ancestral teachings to create dynamic, therapeutic experiences that invite both personal transformation and active participation.
Lucia is deeply committed to creating experiences for women that enables them to have access to culture in Central Australia dissolving the gap between indigenous and non indigenous women. Walking the path of true reconciliation, restoring and regenerating culture. Lucia believes in the importance of experiencing culture in Central Australia from the traditional owners as part of the broader process of decolonization. She has been guided and mentored by her cherished adopted mother, Alison Hunt—a respected Senior Traditional Law Woman—who treated her as her own. She was a bridge between cultures which Lucia now feels a responsibility for since her passing.
Lucia collaborates with a wide range of community health and wellbeing services, incorporating mindfulness, meditation, movement, sound, and music therapy to foster healing and connection. Now, her passion greatly lies in creating women’s cultural and healing camps on Country in Central Australia—spaces for deep restoration, cultural immersion, reconnection to the land and sisterhood.
Through her expertise in sound and music facilitation, Lucia creates immersive spaces where individuals can reconnect with themselves, the Earth, and ancient traditions. Whether through her programs, 1:1 sessions, or cultural gatherings, she inspires, educates, and guides others to embrace land, sound and voice as a profound means of expression and a way of life.
https://www.luciasounds.com/
IG: Lucia Sounds
Films: https://vimeo.com/user86104035

Testimonials from others-
Lucia's pilgrimage was a life changing event. Coming from Sydney and being a Chinese Australian working in corporate my life, I wasn't sure if I would fit in. I was searching for authentic engagement with our indigenous culture and to really understand how a first generation migrant could simply 'be' on country.
Then by pure chance I met Lucia with this incredible offering and I jumped at it. This seemed to offer the holistic healing and authentic opportunity to engage with country that I was looking so long for.
I was nervous because the experience offered real, unfiltered life - uncomfortable and messy and with all its contradictions. I knew we would be sleeping under the stars, it would be hot, there would be times without access to a shower. Instead of the earthly trappings, I was gifted with an opportunity for real learning, true engagement that was multi faceted, intelligent, sophisticated. The campsite and facilities we stayed on, although simple, were incredibly well looked after and we never went hungry under the watchful eye of Kezza.
The sisterhood that was fostered and created is one that I will carry in my hearts forever. Singing under the stars, crying at traumas released, laughing and listening to each other - this will be etched in my memory and I can't wait to see how this sisterhood continues to flourish.
I was in awe at the bridge that Lucia built, this portal, that allowed each of us in our own time, to cross the bridge into an understanding with Arrente culture, the traditional owners and the land itself. I'm truly humbled that I got to be on this pilgrimage That's the power of this place, but it's also the power of the stage that Lucia set for us. The stage was just the earth, sand, waterholes, caves, bushes. I've done so many women's retreats which seemed to have so many 'props' and accessories but under Lucia's artful hand, 'country' itself became the one and only stage we needed for our healing to happen. The sophistication of the experiences we did was so beautiful in their simplicity and elegance. Lucia's connection with the land, the traditional owners and wider community shined through. And her determination to share the knowledge she gained and have difficult conversations around the realities in remote Australia.
Incredible, soul enriching and life changing.
Amy- OCOTBER 2025 PILGRIMAGE

Another-

When I signed up to the Connection to Country Pilgrimage, I really did not know what to expect. I wasn’t even sure why I was joining, aside from a deep yearning to reconnect with Country. I was anxious about who else might be there, would we get along? My brain searching for reasons not to do this. Fortunately, my desire to reconnect to Country, and ultimately to myself, was stronger than my fears and, in September 2025, I found myself in Alice Springs, excited and a tad nervous, waiting
to be picked up on a bus that would take me and 12 other women out on Country for 6 days. And boy, am I glad I did!
From the first moment stepping onto the bus, being welcomed by Lucia and the other women, I felt at home. Trusting in Lucia’s stewardship, the group quickly became a safe container in which we were able to be completely ourselves. Held by the ancient and sacred wisdom of ancestors and Country, and the collective nurturing of women, all pretence faded and, in that space, realisations, tears, and joy came thick and fast. I learned what it meant to commune with the land, to feel its aliveness and its pain, and to notice and appreciate those things within myself. This Pilgrimage was a profoundly healing experience and one I would not hesitate to do again.
Palya, Lucia for making such a journey possible.
Anna Fulwood- ADELAIDE 2025

Another-
“What a deeply potent journey we had to the Red Centre crafted and nurtured by Lucia swift. It was one of the most memorable experiences I have had that will remain in my heart, and continue to grow. It feels so humbling to have been welcomed onto the land of two local Indigenous aunties who shared their wisdom with us. Lucia has cultivated deep connections with these Indigenous women, Christine and Sadie, at Lilla, which really created the ground for the depth of our journey. They welcomed and introduced us to their country - their waters, sacred sites, and ancestral history of the land. We journeyed through sacred ceremonial portals, were supported through healing ceremonies - with the waters and the fire. Sadie and Christine taught us about culture - crafting, bush medicine, and their healing wisdom. Lucia is a wise woman, and holds a deep nurturing space for processes to unravel. Her passion for this work is weaved and experienced through the pilgrimage. Our potent women’s work that was done in a container together, was also deeply supported by two beautiful men, Reg and Kez from Remote Tours. Reg drove us LONG distances, sharing his wisdom, passion, and love of culture, and the land, and also Kez, our bush culinary chef, crafted our meals with his gorgeous smile <3
From the depth of my heart, Lucia, Christine, Sadie, and Reg, thanking you all for this deeply rich experience that I will remain in my heart, and my ancestral lineage - past, present and future
Deep Gratitude! “
Steph Wallace- NORTHERN NSW 2025

I’ve recently returned from a 7 day trip to Central Australia on a woman’s pilgrimage called, ‘Connection to Country’ with the most beautiful Lucia Swift.
Thirteen of us women who’d never met, gathered together in Mpwarnte (Alice Springs), where we headed off together to a small Aboriginal community called ‘Lilla’. Here we slept under the stars in swags, sang together, ate together, shared our hearts around the fire, gathered in movement at sunrise, explored sacred land, engaged in ceremony and sorry business, listened to the humble story telling of the elders, listened deeply to the ancestors who whispered wisdoms on the winds, through our dreams and even through the annoying flies and bitey ants, and swam in Lilla’s sweet waters.
It was a profound experience for me and for each of us. Words are still yet to form without tears, so instead I share some precious memories of my time at Lilla, in community.
I’m forever grateful for this powerful experience
Monique Pangari- SUNSHINE COAST 2024