Saturday, March 21, 2009

Getting dirty......

We were invited to a "Big Field Day Out" today. And after driving around the back roads in the dust for a while, we ended up in exactly that. A big field. Large tents had been put up around the place and people were wandering (and bike riding?!) around. I wasn't exactly sure what we were doing there but as I'm generally up for anything, I wasn't too worried.
It turned out to be various local environmental groups, each with an information booth and display. Each group had some kind of interactive display and there were plenty of activities to keep the children occupied - face painting, paper frog making etc. I found myself amazed at the diversity of these groups - everything from the local "Save the Frogs" group right through to "Fraser Coast Bike Riders" (explained all the mad bike riders even though we were out in the middle of nowhere - though mind you, most of them packed their bikes up and mounted them on the back of their cars at the end??!!)
I spent a fair bit of time hanging out at the Fraser Coast Social Snorkeling Group display, looking at the most amazing photos of local coral reefs - absolutely beautiful - and taking all their information and even their join up form??!! Who knows, maybe I will buy myself a "dry snorkel" (what the??) and go off and be social with these snorkelers!
The highlight of the day was the tree planting session we took part in. We all took two or three native trees, a watering can and a bucket of mulch and proceeded to get good and dirty, digging holes and generally being one with nature. Not long after we put all our little trees in (apparently there were another ten thousand to go in) it started to rain quite heavily - perfect for all those new little trees - and saw all of us huddled together under the big tents, mucky hands and feet, soaked hair stuck to our heads, laughing our heads off. It felt good. It felt a lot like community.

2 comments:

Cathy said...

Sounds a lot like a certain "Tigger" party a couple of years ago! Says something fantastic about a sense of adventure and humour when rain is seen more as a bonding highlight than a "dampner", doesn't it!
Glad you had a fun time.
From the suddenly-looking-very-pregnant-one:) (But not quite game to post a photo, yet!!) Hope to touch base with you really soon...

AndrewWrites said...

Was there a group to help stranded turtles that are set upon by ignorant do-gooders?

*hingle - verb, an error or mistake made by a well meaning person, acting out of ignorance, as in; "That was a bit of a hingle".