Five Minutes

Five minutes of silence can change the way a group experiences a place.

Large groups in the bush are loud by nature. People are excited. They are catching up, pointing things out, laughing across the track, sharing stories, routes, gossip, weather predictions. And some people are louder than others. You know who you are. Honestly, that noise is part of the fun.

Quiet minutes beneath the cliffs. Wollemi National Park

On my walks, I like to ask the group to walk in silence for five minutes.

At the start of the day, during the briefing, I usually mention that at some point I’ll call for five minutes of silence. That way everyone knows it’s coming.

It’s not a formal thing. There are no speeches, no mindfulness exercises. Just a simple request: for the next five minutes, no talking. Tapping a shoulder, pointing something out, or quietly helping someone over a rock is fine. An emergency, of course, would override everything. Otherwise, conversation pauses.

Spacing in the silence. Colo River

I usually pick a place that already feels special. That could be a cliff view, a fern-decorated gully, or maybe a mossy creek. At first there’s an adjustment: a late adopter (you know who you are), a suppressed laugh, boots scraping, packs shifting, someone instinctively turning to speak before remembering. Then the group settles. The birds continue as normal. They showed little interest in the briefing.

Layers of the bush are louder in the silence. Mugii Murum-ban

People tend to spread out slightly, slow their pace, and look around more carefully. Things that conversation had pushed into the background become more noticeable: light on cliff walls, movement in leaves, mist lifting through trees, tiny plants pushing up from sandstone cracks. Even a large group can become surprisingly quiet.

The group falls quiet beneath the sandstone walls. Koan’s Cave

For a few minutes, attention shifts from the group to the place around it.

When talking returns, it usually comes back softer at first, though sometimes the noise and laughter return in full, as they should.

Five minutes is not long, but it is usually enough to notice the difference.

A quiet place to pause. Mugii Murum-ban