Bright, delicious idea hatches

‘‘It was fun. I just like chocolate. I just ran and grabbed that stuff.’’ Damein Mokai-sharp, 13

Chocolate was the word on everyone’s lips when crowds of parents and children gathered for the inaugural giant Easter Egg Hunt in The Square.

The free event in Palmerston North on Saturday was staged by Vision Church as a way to create more presence in the community and provide some fun, organiser Crystal Grigg said.

A thousand registrations were taken, 800 as pre-registrations, and queues stretched back into The Square before numbers had to be capped.

Children were entertained with face painting, rock painting and giant Jenga while anticipation grew.

Different age-group egg patches were roped off, with easter eggs hidden throughout the grass, bushes and trees, offering tantalising glints of foil to children ready to pounce.

Grigg said they had been lucky the rain had died away earlier in the morning. This Easter was the first of what they hoped would be many egg hunts.

Waiting at the ropes, Cloverlea five-year-old Brody Shortall discussed the strategy he would employ with his mum.

‘‘I’ll just run to look for them in the good hiding places like in the bushes. That’s a great hiding place. ‘‘I like the chocolate with the surprise inside, and you get to break all the chocolate off and find something inside. I might share my Easter eggs if I have lots of them,’’ he said.

His older sister Cloey, 10, was going with a ‘‘take it as it comes’’ approach to the hunt.

‘‘It’s good because everyone gets to try.

‘‘It’s going to be fun because we can go home and eat the eggs and all the treats.’’

Damein Mokai-sharp, 13, had just shifted to Palmerston North and was excited there was a community Easter egg hunt here.

During the hunt, he managed to claim an impressive collection of gold foil-wrapped eggs.

‘‘It was fun. I just like chocolate. I just ran and grabbed that stuff. I had, like, five by my feet when I started, so I got whole pocketsfull.’’

Dilky Abayarathna, 5, found seven eggs and said her favourite part of the day was ‘‘eating chocolate’’.

Her mum Sharmyla said the hunt was nice because it was shared with other families.

‘‘It was so cool. They had lots of fun and they were so excited to come down here for this.

‘‘We loved coming along to get in touch with other people, and it’s good that the holidays have started and we have something to do with the kids.’’

As crowds filed out of The Square, the rain returned, sending children and parents scurrying.