Silas Discovers Yowies

These creatures sitting on my laptop are called Yowies.

From Wikipedia:

Yowie was a brand of chocolate encased toy line, manufactured by Cadbury Australia and based on the mythology surrounding the Australian Yowie. Invented by Bryce Courtenay and Geoff Pike, they were similar to Kinder Surprises in that they are basically a chocolate shell around a plastic capsule, with a toy inside. Unlike Kinder Surprises, the toy is usually an Australian or New Zealand animal. There have been several series of Yowie toys; the first were animals, with limited edition Yowie pencil toppers in some of them. Later, Grumkin pencil toppers also appeared. In 2001 there was a departure from the usual kind of Yowies. In conjunction with an Australian Museum exhibit called The Lost Kingdoms, new Yowies came out. Instead of endangered animals, these had extinct animals in them, along with the modern koala and platypus. The packaging also got overhauled. The wrappers of the Lost Kingdom Yowies could be distinguished by the sign and shovel being held in their paws.

The Yowies, according to the story, are protectors of the various environments of Gondwana. Their names were Rumble (deserts, resembling a kangaroo), Boof (rainforests and mountains, resembling a bandicoot), Crag (swamps and mangroves, resembling a crocodile), Ditty (bushland, resembling a wombat), Nap (gum forests, resembling a koala), and Squish (rivers and waterways and possibly the ocean as well, resembling a platypus). The Yowies were ruled by Bunyip who lived in a billabong.

Yowies became known to us from John, who would stuff our Christmas packages with Yowies and did so for several years, which my children enjoyed. So did I, and as you can see, I saved every single one.

Silas is entranced with anything he has to work on and put together.

But some are hard and he needs mommy’s help.

Miranda is really good at this, as some require three hands sometimes! She still manages!

Well I was in a trance watching Silas enjoy them so.

Now I am so glad I didn’t throw these away when my children got older.

Silas holds up a bat. I have now learned looking at ebay, these little creatures are collectors items.