Party @ the Himalayan Cedars

It just so happens that for the last four years we haven't been in Canberra for Ella's birthday and have avoided having a party for her. As you can image we were under significant pressure to have one this year, however with Andy away followed by travelling to easter we were slow to do something about it.

Eventually after some discussions and a visit to the National Arboretum, Ella was keen to have an outdoor adventure party at the Himalayan Cedars. This particular forest of pine trees were planted between 1917 - 1930 and amazingly survived the bush fires in 2003. The development of the National Arboretum has seen the building of a picnic area, bbq and toilet facilities in the heart of this forest. A perfect place for a party!

As fate has it, once the invites were sent out, the weather forecast began to look ominous - rain and cold conditions for most of the week and into the weekend! As the days ticked over, the weather began to dry out but the forecast for saturday remained cold and rainy. We weren't too concerned that it wasn't going to be perfect blue skies.

Then Saturday dawned and this was the forecast…..

Oh dear! Considering the effort and organisation put into the party, we decided to still go ahead and hoped the rain would be more like intermittent showers and they'd miss the party. If the conditions deteriorated too much then we would retreat back to our house post party treasure hunt for food and cake.

Fortuitously, Andy's Dad was down to organise the mid week orienteering event the following Wednesday and had picked up the equipment which included a medium sized shelter! At least the food would be dry. We arrived at the venue half an hour early to set up the shelter, food and scavenger/treasure hunt stuff.

Guest began to arrive all rugged up and headed off to explore the stick cubby houses. Soon after, Andy handed out the scavenger hunt bags which listed objects that the children were to find in the forest. This list included both natural - pine cones, bark…and man made - chocolate ladybugs, chupa chupa flowers and their own named envelope.

So for the next 20 mins or so, the children and the adults scoured the forest in search of the items on the list. Some were easy and some not so easy.

Once most children had collected the required objects, they gathered under the shelter for the next set of instructions. Each child had a numbered envelope which corresponded to the order in which they were to be opened. The envelope contained a set of simple instructions which would (eventually) lead them to the hidden treasure!

It was quite a challenge due to the lack of different features in the forest, to come up with enough clues so that each child had a turn, hence seizing the opportunity to using natures offerings of sticks….follow the stick arrows to the stick cross. Anyway for most of the hunt, they 'got' the clue however there were a couple of moments when the older ones took off in completely the wrong direction!

Covering about 700m, the children finally made it to the finish, locating the treasure box adjacent to the Wide Brown Land sculpture. The loot of loom bands and notebooks/pens were well received and well deserved!

Then it was time for more food and birthday cake!  All in all a fun party but we were all really glad to get home and warm up!