
On Wednesday the 18th of April, a small band of intrepid explorers traveled to Rottnest Island to compete in the first annual (hopefully!) HBF Geo-Challenge!
The event, organized by our friends at Nature Play WA, was a geocaching race for Year 6 students across WA. Teams consisted of 3 students and one teacher. Our lucky team was Tui, Gabe, Isaac and Tim.
Geocaching is the world’s fastest growing sport, consisting of using a map and a GPS to locate hidden “caches” in the natural and urban environment. There are millions of Geocaches around the world, but Nature Play WA set up a series of 47 geocaches around Rottnest specifically for the event.
After a quick strategy meeting, our team (The Wadjemup Wanderers) set out on a 4 hour bike and hike search all over the island. We searched high and low, finding caches hidden under water tanks, in trees, magneted behind signs, dangled on string down air vents, inside toy birds, you get the idea… There was even one in an egg under a flamingo!
In the end we found an impressive 21 caches, placing us in the top 10 out of 50 teams, but we saw so much more! We saw quokkas, huge rays, different lizards, all kinds of birds, dolphins and, of course, the stuffed flamingo. We explored the history and landscape of our special Island and spent the day playing and challenging ourselves in the great outdoors, what could be better!
