Leap into Nature visited Wattle Park today in Burwood.  It's a lovely bushland remnant tucked away in suburbia.  Walking among large old eucalyptus trees that were around before European settlement is a lovely experience for young and old! There was a smell of lemon/eucalyptus in the air, it was a warm, sunny and lovely day to be out exploring nature with other like-minded families.
We enjoyed our bushwalk, touching, looking, smelling and listening as we walked. We found an old den to explore, learnt the difference between an insect and a spider, caught bugs and insects with a hand-made pooter/aspirator, and rummaged in the leaf litter with our brushes and magnify glasses to find lots of slaters and other 'mini-beasts'!  We weren't quite savvy enough to catch a butterfly - but there were plenty flying around us that was lovely to watch. One of the mums spotted a young skink, which we were able to catch and have a good close look at before we set it free. We also had some quiet time making stick men and other faces/creatures with found objects in nature.
Was a lovely morning, thanks everyone for coming...we will definitely come back to this park!

Our little nature detectives had a great morning at Plenty Gorge today! Our mission was to collect all sorts of different rocks... there were plenty (excuse the pun!) to choose from on our morning bushwalk and nature discovery time.  We visited the 'Blue Lake' and loved looking at the mighty Plenty River. The kids held a rock trowing competition over the edge of the gorge and we found some of the rocks break apart!
The kids walked pretty much the whole way which was a great effort up and down the hill back to our 'camp' spot.
This was where the kids ran free, created a 'Rock Report', tested the float or sink properties of their rocks and other collections such as bark, leaves and sticks.  We also made 'nature faces', played good old fashioned tiggy and spent some relaxing quality time in nature!  

Our family took a nature discovery adventure to Toolangi State Forest today. Toolangi is located in the Shire of Murrundindi in the Central Highlands, about 1.5 hours outside of Melbourne.  

Toolangi State Forest forms part of an area that has been proposed as the the Great Forest National Park, which would create and add a new 355,000 hectares of protected forests to the existing 170,000 hectares of parks and protected areas in the Central Highlands of Victoria.  The proposal is based on five key reasons: conservation of near extinct wildlife and plants after Black Saturday and in light of future fire events (such as the Leadbeater's Possum); water catchments of Melbourne; food bowl and community security; tourism; climate (the forests store more carbon per hectare than any other forest studied in the world!); and places of spiritual nourishment. See more here: http://www.greatforestnationalpark.com.au/park-plan.html

We started at the Forest Discovery Centre and headed out on the Yea River Walk, which is a loop walk of about 4 km. There is so much to discover on the ground, in the undergrowth, among the trees and shrubs. From the small intricate details to the towering, majestic canopy of the Mountian Ash. It was an easy walk for the kids and took about an hour or so... well worth the visit!  You can pledge your support for the Great Forest National Park here.... http://www.greatforestnationalpark.com.au/supporters.html