Harlow Rocks Rock Drop in Harlow Town Park

I have been apart of the Harlow Rocks group for over a year now! Often, when running our Pokemon Go group, we will do rock decorating days to give to the Harlow Rocks group. It’s basically a group of people who paint a bunch of rocks and then hide them in the town and beyond. These rocks are meant to be found and bring joy to whoever sees them. During the summer and Easter each year, Harlow Rocks does a Rock Drop event, where we all band together to try to hide a huge number of rocks! There are a bunch of other activities there as well. This is our third Harlow Rocks event that we’ve attended, this time on the Easter Monday as it happened to fall, which was very fun.

As I had been collecting painted rocks for Harlow Rocks from our Pokemon Go group, and Amelia and Robin have been painting rocks with their friends whenever they come over, we had a nice sized haul to deliver. These rocks were spring designed, space designed, Pokemon designed, and some were just sort of drawn on, with made up designs from some of the younger ones we’ve had over recently. I am quite proud of how many rocks we ended up getting done and how many we could deliver.

After we had dropped our rocks off at the Harlow Rocks drop, they were placed in groups of ten inside a roped area, and we had a look at the other submitted rocks. They essentially collect and count all of the rocks, then at the end of the event, they hand them out in bags of 5 or 10 to families, to hide in the area and beyond. There were some really beautiful rocks, including ones with cats, ones looking like bit M&Ms, ones that had galaxies on them. We loved spotting them! The girls then wanted to paint one of the rocks at the event, and by paint, I do mean color with markers. We went up to the tarp and they both picked rocks to color in. Inspired by the M&Ms, they both made bit skittles to add to the collection. These rocks could be placed in a box to be varnished or placed directly in the count.

On the band stand at Harlow Town Park, due to the weather, there was their giant raffle as well. Tons of prizes were set out on a table. The money raised goes towards varnish for the rocks, so that they can keep their designs for longer, as well as the activities at the event and the large rocks that are often painted (instead of needing to find rocks). On the bandstand, there was someone set up playing softly on their guitar, providing for some lovely background music. After the girls had colored in and handed in their rocks to the Harlow Rocks rock drop, we picked up some of the freebies on the freebie table; they have flags, key chains, magnets, and bracelets. Robin picked out a magnet. We then went to the finger rock station, where our fingers were painted, pressed onto the rock, and then designs were drawn around them. These rocks were ones we took home and added to our rock garden.

Harlow Rocks had a sponsor this year; Two Greedy Pigs, who had hidden two rocks somewhere in the massive park. You can find these rocks for a free meal at their BBQ joint. We did not spend time looking for these rocks this time, as we had some Easter plans, but do think it’s such a cool idea! There is a real community feel to Harlow Rocks. It’s fantastic seeing Swiss, the dog mascot of Harlow Rocks, and generally meeting some other rockers. It was a fab day, even though the weather wasn’t ideal.

You can check out our other Days Out to see what else we’ve been up too!