Family fun set for Australia Day

BARRACK Reserve will come alive on Australia Day with the fourth annual Picnic in the Park and it’s shaping up to be a great family day out.

Heathcote RSL sub-branch secretary Miles Humphrey said it was a community-oriented event with free food and entertainment.

“We make a point of saying we don’t have any official format,” he said. “Everybody’s welcome, it’s just a very relaxed picnic.

“People come along and sit in the park and enjoy the day.

“We have a petting zoo which is very popular and we put on free ice cream from the Bendigo Ice Creamery cart.

“We’ve upped the catering for that this year, last year we forecast about 300 and we needed 500.”

There’s also a sausage sizzle and entertainment from Bremer River Band and the Clan MacLeod Pipe Band.

“Last year’s picnic was especially good because we had a lot more young families, we had heaps of kids there,” Mr Humphrey said.

“I think word had got around from the previous few years and people just came in from everywhere.”

The Picnic in the Park is the successor to the long-running Heathcote Australia Day ceremony.

“All we wanted to do was have a community family picnic,” Mr Humphrey said. “No bells and whistles, just put some entertainment on and do a free sausage sizzle.

“The first year we found we could get a small grant from the council and we got a jumping castle and entertainment. It just got bigger and bigger from there.

“Funding support for the event for the event comes primarily from our sub-branch social fundraising throughout the year, a grant from City of Greater Bendigo, and donations from local businesses such as Mandalay Resources and The Barn Pet Stock & Feed.

“All other support comes from our valued volunteers.”

The sub-branch has been able to stage the event each year despite COVID restrictions.

“I think that last year and the year before, we were only one of three places in the whole Bendigo area that kept going with it-otherwise they were all cancelled,” Mr Humphrey said.

“We said no, we’re going to keep going with it. We still had to do all the risk assessments and paperwork for COVID and have it registered. But it’s just paperwork.”

Picnic in the Park is at Barrack Reserve, Heathcote from 10 am to 2 pm on Thursday, 26 January.