National Children's Day in NZ

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Today is national Children’s day in New Zealand, and to celebrate, Caroline and a team have been planning a ‘Play Date With Nature’ day for the last month or so. The event is totally free and based in the forest where the Kindegarten Nature Discovery mornings are held, with similar activities and more. The event had been advertised all over the South Island of New Zealand and on the radio, so I hope it is a success.

I am up early and at the forest for 9am, from the meeting last week, I already know my role is the cubby building activity, so after helping with the main set up, I head off into the forest to my designated spot and start building a cubby. I have literally no idea how to start, and after a while of messing around with branches, I form a rough structure and decide on a tepee. My thinking is to start off a structure and then children can come along and add to it, or make their own, depending on their age and what they fancy! The event starts at 11am, and on the dot, the people start arriving. Some of the events occurring are rope swing, wires course, bow and arrow making with archery, story telling, jumping rocks, wetta ramps, search and rescue, rolley polley hill, art with nature, sausage sizzle and damper making, as well as my cubby making. With all the events spread out through the forest it doesn’t feel overly busy where I am, and people come in a steady flow, some building their own but the majority adding to mine, and enjoying sawing up branches, and I have the most fabulous time, playing around building the tepee and messing around sawing wood etc all afternoon with the children.

The event finished at 2pm, but people were still around in the forest, it was a massive success with over 140 children attending, and the total count 214 including adults! After helping pack down it was 3.30pm when I got back to the hostel. Fairly quiet rest of the afternoon and early eve headed for a run. Had a fab 10k run round to the control gates and back, and in a good time as well considering I haven’t run for longer than 5k since I left England.

After my run and all the days excitement and activities I had a nice early night and sorted through my photos from Milford Sound.

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