Musselburgh resident Rebecca Harvey’s mother paints rocks she collects from Bruce Bay and Haast River with a variety of colourful characters to catch the eyes of children exploring the south of the South Island.
"My dad takes them to work and hides them in places that children are more likely to find than adults — because it’s something kids enjoy finding.
"Places like under picnic tables, sort of in a joint, all those places where kids would hide, crawl into or climb up and where adults wouldn’t tend to notice.
"When Dad used to work on the road up to Haast Pass, he would pull over in places like Fantail Falls and carpark and just hide them in nooks and crannies and trees."
When the family travelled up to Picton and Ms Harvey’s sister spotted some, her nieces and nephews soon decided they wanted to hide some of their own — so their grandmother decided to start painting the rocks.
The idea is when rocks are found, to hide them again, or keep some for yourself.
The family was not lacking in rocks.
Ms Harvey, who works at a rest-home, attempted to get her residents in on the fun.
"I tried to get the residents to go out walking by going ‘Hey look, these are for kids’, but yeah, it didn’t work because they ended up just keeping them all."
How the rocks end up in some places, she was not sure.
"We’ve heard of some being found up in the Starship hospital gardens in Auckland and the furthest I’ve seen on our Facebook page is Taupō."
The chances of finding a Haast rock of your own is high — Ms Harvey hides them in Dunedin, her sister hides them in Invercargill and her mum and dad put them around Haast.
"It’s nice to have them in the south of the South Island, to see how far they do travel."
If you spot a rock, you can post and share where you found it on the families’ Facebook page Haast Rocks.
