Aboriginal Culture and Heritage Activities 

Blow the Didg and Throw the Gidg

Paint up your own didgeridoo using traditional art styles carefully explained by your Aboriginal guide. Make up your own Gidg (spear) markers from natural materials and join in for the great spear throwing competition. This activity is a mixture of education, art, music, construction and a hint of sport. A great half day session!

Cost: $11

Age: 9+

Limit: 20

When: 1 – 3 pm Sat 15 Sep

            10.30 am - 12.30 pm Tue 2 Oct; Fri 5 Oct

Location: The Hills Forest Discovery Centre

Boomerangs and Bush Tucker

Learn about the many different uses and Aboriginal names for our native plants and animals. Walk through the forest and meet bushtucker and bush medicine plants face to face. Finish this great session by painting a boomerang to take home with you.

Cost: $12.50

Age: 5+

Limit: 20

Times: 10:30am – 12:30pm

Location: The Hills Forest Discovery Centre

Dates: Sun 8 Apr;  Thu 19 Apr;  Tue 24 Apr;  Mon 8 Oct;  Thu 11 Oct;

Milli Milli Baskets

Feeling creative? Sit down with your Nyoongar guide and learn about the Aboriginal way of life. While you’re chatting, you can make your own Aboriginal necklace, bracelet or anklet threaded up with all sorts of native seeds and coloured beads. Also try your skill at making a Milli Milli – a paperbark basket woven with string made from native reeds. You’ll learn how to do the lot and get to take home your works of art.

Cost:  $15.50

Age:  5+ and adults

Limit: 20

Location: The Hills Forest Discovery Centre

When: 10:30am – 12:30pm: Sun 8 Apr; Fri 13 July; Mon 16 July; Mon 8 Oct;

1 – 3pm: Sat 21 July; Sat 18 Aug;

Coolanger Dreaming

This activity, specifically designed for under 5s, gently guides young children towards connection with the land. They’ll hear traditional stories, get to sleep in an Aboriginal Mia and take a discovery ramble through the forest with their Nyoongar guide. Afterwards they’ll paint their own personal story onto a cloth place mat which, as they grow up will remind them of their Coolanger Dreaming (Children Dreaming). Parents or friends accompanying the children can opt to make their own place mat.

Cost: $20  ($6.60 for each extra blank place mat)

Age: under 5’s with adult

Limit: 15

Times: 10.30am – 12.30 pm

Location: The Hills Forest Discovery Centre

Date: Sun 8 Apr;  Thu 19 Apr;  Tue 24 Apr;  Tue 1 May; 

Aboriginal Arts Immersion Weekend – 13 & 14 October 2001

Spend a weekend in Spring and immerse yourself in Aboriginal Arts and Culture. Feel a sense of place and belonging as Nyoongar guides walk, talk and tutor you through their cultural beliefs and art styles. Professional Aboriginal artists, guides and a Didgeridoo player will lead the sessions. 

The whole family can enjoy this weekend, with a special under 5s session - Coolanger Dreaming, where the very young have their eyes opened to the many wonders of nature. They’ll get to try out an Aboriginal shelter (Mia Mia) and hear some Nyoongar walk-along stories, before they return to paint up their Coolanger place mats, complete with their tiny hand prints and pictures of other treasures they’ve discovered. 

Older children and adults can opt to paint up and learn the basics of playing an authentic didgeridoo or dot paint a bark painting and clap sticks. You paint them up and get to take them home. In the evening, you’ll learn how fire was made before matches, make a taap (mini axe) and if you’ve made an instrument can jam the night away. In the morning take a bushtucker walk through the jarrah and marri forest overlooking the Mundaring Weir. What an experience! And what mementos you’ll take home. 

Basic workshop costs:  For the activities: $48 ad  $35 chn  $20 under 5s  $200 fam

Then choose your materials to decorate: (prices include all materials)

Bark Painting: $11

Clap Sticks: $17.50 per pair

Authentic didgeridoo (unpainted): $85

Under 5s Coolanger Dreaming session: $20  (accompanying adults – free, but a charge of $6.60 for each extra blank place mat will help to cover costs) NB An adult must accompany the child for the first hour.

Age:  no limit

Limit: 60

Location: The Hills Forest Discovery Centre

When: 1.30pm Sat 13 Oct – 11.30am Sun 14 Oct

Bookings close: 13 September 2001

Some possible nearby accommodation choices:

Stay on-site at the fabulous Hills Forest campground (showers and toilets, camp kitchen, tent sites set amongst the jarrah trees and overlooking Mundaring Weir.

The Hills Forest campground

Cost:: $8.80 ad  $6.60 chn

Motel accommodation at Historic Mundaring Weir Hotel 1 km from Discovery Centre

Cost: $115.50 (Double + $16.60 per extra bed)

Darjil Mari YHA Hostel or camping accommodation at the Darjil Mari hostel set amongst bold granite boulders and wildflowers 1 km from the Discovery centre.

Cost: $19.50 ad $14.50 chn ($3.50 YHA members)

Treetop Retreat B&B, 500 m from Discovery Centre

Cost: $88 (double only) per night

Grevillea House B&B 10 mins from the Discovery Centre.

Cost: from $85