' Kids Grow Wild' Mount Annan
It seems harder than ever to get kiddies to put down their gaming consoles, laptops, Facebook, and IPhones and discover the real world. Nature. To help children get in to touch with their wild side, the
Australian Botanic Gardens at Mount Annan are running their 'Kids Grow Wild' holiday activities every Tuesday during January. You can safely leave your youngster with one of the Education Officers who will treat them to a fun packed 90 minutes of interacting and learning about the bugs of the Australian bush.
The guide, Allen, looks a bit like Santa out of uniform with his long grey hair and beard so the children today seems to be instantly at ease with him. After a briefing on staying safe and dry and a short lesson on the life cycle of some of the insects and arachnids that the kids might encounter, it's off to the lake to dip their nets and try their luck and catching and identifying the creatures living there in.
The kids take to their task with great gusto returning their catches to Allen. There's no shortage of small guppy like fish but the kids also bring in some water beetles, water nymphs and fresh water shrimp. Despite all the warnings by Allen, kids will be kids and there is the inevitable slip into the shallow waters resulting in one damp unhappy child.
The next stop is three empty pizza boxes in the bush and Allen despairs about some of the unwanted visitors to the park, litterers.
We then come to what appears to be just another gum tree, but Allen explains the various creepy crawlies that live within. Peeling away some bark, Allen discovers some ants, beetles and then after a warning to the crowd to step back, a huge huntsman spider mum and her large egg sac. The children seemed pretty relaxed about it even after the massive creature darts away. There's no shrieking, hysterics or panic.
This band of potential David Attenboroughs then moves on to an innocuous bit of ground. Allen points to two large holes and then coaxes out an enormous bull ant some two centimetres long. He doesn't recommend being bitten by one, so he plonks it into a small jar so everyone can look at it close up in relative safety.
There's an opportunity for a final dip of the nets in the lake and then we all head back to meet up with the parents and grandparents to collect some damper. It's a hot day and if you are going to slip into the lake after raising a sweat on a bug hunt, then this is definitely the day to do it.
When: Tuesdays in January & February. Session times and locations vary, meet at the Visitor Centre
Where: Locations vary, meet at the Visitor Centre
Cost: $11, Friends of the Botanic Gardens $10
Bookings: 4634 7935.
