A few years ago my wife and I decided to do a 4 week road trip to Perth and the south coast of W.A. over the Christmas holidays.
Living in Melbourne we made a plan to head across the Great Australian Bite and spend as much of the time as possible in Western Australia, given that it’s so far away and the South Australian destinations can be seen on shorter trips.
The Plan was to make it to Perth on day 5 which demanded some long days behind the wheel to cover the 3500kms.
We borrowed some 12v DVD players to keep the kids entertained but didn’t want them spending the whole trip glued to a screen and not taking in the Aussie outback.
To tackle this problem we devised a plan and made a checklist of all the animals, plant life structures, landscapes and any other tourist attractions we thought we were likely to see and a few silly things for good measure.
In the modern world we live in today there is a camera on just about every electronic device and both our girls had a cheap compact camera.
So we issued a printed list to all 4 of us with the prize of a block of chocolate at the end of the trip for the person who could photograph the most things on the list.
Initially I thought it might stem the boredom for a little while, little did I know how fierce the competition would be throughout the entire trip.
Occasionally on a walk one of the kids would seem to tire and drop back a little only to catch up and show us that we missed a photo opportunity from the list.
Needless to say we all enjoyed the challenge and it not only helped pass time in the car but got the kids looking around and observing the scenery a lot more than they otherwise would have.
Great idea. I’d love to know what was on your list.