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Family fun with a high-tech twist

Kellie Owens with sons Zac and Jake. Picture: The West Australian

Dozens of families from across WA descended on Margaret River at the weekend for some old-fashioned fun with a high-tech twist.

The Nature Play family geo-challenge was a two-day treasure hunt with a difference.

Parents and their children used GPS-enabled smartphones to track down "geocache" containers hidden throughout the region.

Geocaching is an orienteering-based activity that is gaining popularity worldwide.

Participants navigate to within a certain distance of the geocache, at which point they lose GPS guidance and have to find it themselves.

Kellie Owens and her two sons Zac, 5, and Jake, 3, made the journey from Mindarie, but others came from as far as Bindoon and Kalgoorlie.

"Once your phone tells you you're close, you put it down and start looking around in the trees, under rocks," Ms Owens said.

"We found one in a log - they'd actually bored out a little hole for the geocache."

She said the hardest part of the weekend would be getting their children back in the car.

"They're excited and they don't want to go home," she said. "It's just amazing when you put them out here."