We recently went camping in a very remote part of the West Australian bush. We were about 100kms away from the closest town and literally surrounded by hundreds of kilometres of bushland and not much else.
Once we set up camp, there wasn’t much to do except hike, walk, make a fire and look at the scenery.
We camped with our friends (another couple) and their kids, so in total there were 4 adults and 6 kids, aged between 14 and 6. I was a little nervous that the kids would wander off and get lost. But they were great. They entertained themselves really well.
They collected firewood, made a cubby house, dug holes and trenches, made their own garden, roasted marshmallows and played card games.
But after 2 days of that, they starting to fight and bicker – so we decided they needed a project!
My husband is a ‘project’ man, so he gave the kids a brief:
Create a rock collection based on shape, colour or texture and present them in a row, increasing/decreasing in size.
The kid with the best gradient would win $5. We gave them 2 days, and boy it was fun. The whole area around us was covered in weird little rocks and iron ore composite rocks with banded colours of compressed minerals. I’m not exactly sure what they were.
The kids were so quiet and so preoccupied for the rest of the trip! It was amazing!
On the last morning of camp, we put down a huge plastic sheet on the ground and the kids laid out their rock collections.
With our feet covered in red dirt, we all stood around like art critics and examined the rock collections.
It was quite clever, creative, bizarre and entertaining at the same time.
Everyone gave a little speech and presented their findings.
We all discussed the strengths and weaknesses of each collection.
This was a very cute example of the smooth iron blobs scattered all over the range.
This collection was less of a gradient and more of a line up of beautiful banded rocks.
The cube-like rock on the right, looked like a slice of chocolate waffer cake!
A very impressive triangle rock shape gradient!
And as a complete surprise to everyone, I secretly entered the competition with some heart-shaped rocks!
Impressive huh? I can’t believe how cute they looked.
They were so bloody hard to find! I pretty much had my head down looking at the ground the whole second half of the trip, and might have missed a few sights.
Here’s a close up.
I was a bit embarrassed that I stole the limelight from the kids – it was their activity after all!
And I had a feeling that they (my own children) were a bit pissed off at me for cutting into their winnings, so my husband saved the day by creating different award categories (Best Size Gradient, Best Colour and Pattern Gradient, Best Presentation) and in the end EVERYONE WON $5 haha!
I absolutely love looking at these rock collections now. They put the biggest smile on my face :)
