Jaidyn Kennedy
Wyndham Harbour hosted the area’s first smell walk on Saturday, September 7.
Guests were given the opportunity to participate in a unique olfactory experience, scanning the area at their own pace armed with clipboards, a smell chart and their noses.
The 45-minute self-guided walk saw participants record smells they encountered, the location, intensity and if it was to their liking or not.
Smell Art founder and scent designer Erin Adams led the walk and shared what she loves about hosting smell walks.
“It is very rewarding to be able to facilitate what is, for almost everyone, their very first smell walk, and to hear about how much they enjoyed the experience- I also really love looking through everyone’s smell notes and reading all the wild and wonderful scents that people found.”
Ms Adams was more than satisfied with Wyndham’s first smell adventure.
“The day exceeded my expectations. We had a wonderful group of people and the weather couldn’t have been better.”
The smell scavenger hunt was followed by afternoon tea that doubled as an introductory smell seminar.
Ms Adams began by explaining the science of smell, how our sense of smell fares compared to other species and enthusiastically debunked some misconceptions about the frequently forgotten sense.
She went on to discuss the long history of smell being stigmatised in Western civilisation as being animalistic and unreliable, reaching as far back as Plato and Aristotle over 2300 years ago in Greece.
Through Smell Art, Ms Adams is determined to get people thinking about smell, which according to some experts is scientifically a 100 years behind other more studied senses, in a positive way.
Wyndham Harbour was selected for its coastal location on Port Phillip Bay and its unique blend of urban and agricultural scents. The next smell hotspot is yet to be confirmed.
