By Mikayla van Loon
When getting outside and going for a walk during lockdown is all that you can do, it can be easy to get bored of the same old same old.
But thanks to the efforts of Chloe Baulch and Kim Kasprzyk, Lilydale now has its own scavenger hunt along the Lilydale Warburton Rail Trail to make walks that little bit more interesting.
41 familiar Disney and cartoon character faces can be spotted from the Nelson Road entrance of the rail trail and you can test your Disney movie knowledge with some trivia questions along the way.
Chloe said she had noticed scavenger hunts popping up in other suburbs but nothing had happened in Lilydale yet.
As a youth worker, Chloe had started hearing some of the children she works with complain about just going on walks.
“Hearing the kids complain, like, ‘oh I hate walking or I can’t be bothered or it’s just boring or I can’t go to the park, I’m over 12 years’ and I’m like well what can we do for that age bracket or what can we do to make it more fun,” she said.
“So this way we thought it brings all the Disney and animation things to them so they can go and find them and actually have something to look for.”
Kim said it also has the opposite effect, giving parents the ability to just walk instead of watching their kids playing at the playground.
Chloe and Kim also designed the scavenger hunt to cater for every age group, including characters everyone could recognise.
“Chloe was the one who said she wanted to do Disney and so we just sort of incorporated some of the newer cartoons with some of the ones we grew up with just to make it a bit of fun for the older generations if they wanted to do it too,” Kim said.
“When we were down here the other day there was a lady doing it with an elderly person and it’s easy for the elderly to see as well.
“I work with the elderly, so I know that when they can get out, this is something that they might enjoy as well.”
Making it easily accessible to everyone was a high priority for Chloe and Kim’s scavenger hunt and they chose the location that they did because of ease of access, popularity with local residents and the ability to place the cartoon characters in trees and on rocks.
Join in the fun and keep up to date on Facebook by going to the ‘Lilydale Scavenger Hunt’ page.
