Griffin Longley

Dear Nature Play WA community, After 12 years at the helm of Nature Play WA, it is time for me to say goodbye and wish you all a nature-rich life, full of play, connection, and adventure. As I prepare to move into whatever my next adventure may be, and as Nature Play WA prepares to […]

The great Western Australian dream of owning a backyard so vast that your kids stub their toes on the push-mower you lost to the weeds three summers ago while fielding their sister’s cover drive is, let’s just face it, over. The quarter-acre block is dead, and backyards are shrinking faster than a Twisties packet in

Aboriginal art workshop at Nature Play WA and City of Gosnells’ International Play Day event with Urban Indigenous It is National Reconciliation Week and I would like to reflect on what I think it means for the children in our community. I will begin with my own lived experience, which, as a non-Aboriginal Australian, places very real limitations on

Adventure is at your doorstep. On any given weekend you can walk out of the city with a pack on your back and a map in your pocket and follow one of WA’s amazing trails into one of the world’s great wildernesses. And there is no better time to do it than in the glorious Noongar

You know it’s summer because you are driving with oven mitts on. Also, you have moved your houseplants 1.5metres back from the window, and somewhere deep in the back of your mind Noel Coward is singing “only mad dogs and Englishmen go out in the midday sun”. Yes, it is hot. Yes, it is getting

About now, we’d normally be gearing up for 4,000 cubby builders to descend on Yanchep National Park and transform a tranquil patch of grass into the shanty citadel that is Cubby Town. Our friends at Yanchep National Park would be making great piles of branches they’d collected over six-months, we’d be arranging for truckloads of

A well-worn box sits on a shelf in my home office. Inside are Father’s Day cards collected over 22 years. Little moments of my children’s hands, minds, and hearts at work. A time capsule from scribbles in jagged texta-green, to drawings with the sure and emotive lines of young women with artist’s hands inherited from

We live on a blue planet, yes, but also a planet of trees. And as we approach National Tree Day it’s a fitting moment to remember the extraordinary role the 60,000 species of trees that grace every continent and corner of the globe (except the polar regions, parking lots, and some misconceived playgrounds) play in our life,

What is the right amount of screen time in a pandemic? Does watching Bluey count? And do I get extra parent-credits for forcing my kid to play with a stick, in the rain, while I figure out how to resist the return of the old normal? These are just some of the questions as we

What makes a great nature playground? The key to playgrounds and play spaces of all kinds is never to forget that the greatest piece of play equipment in the universe is your kid’s imagination. Activate that, and a play world is born. Play worlds are inhabited by moving bodies, by creative thought, by sweat and