Australia Day festivities in Beaufort are part of a bigger plan to prepare the town for bypass and connect community with the Rainbow Serpent Festival, president of the Beaufort Progress Association says.
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Event organisers are preparing to catch traffic passing through while attracting new people to the town with an Australia Day market, live roving street performers, a pool party and Vegemite themed special menu items at cafes and restaurants.
The town has been decorated in rainbow colours with bunting made by community groups with materials supplied by the Rainbow Serpent Arts and Culture Foundation.
Pyrenees Shire councillor Damian Ferrari said linking Rainbow Serpent to community activities was becoming more important and appreciated in Beaufort.
“Australia Day is a good opportunity for the town’s people to get together, for other people to get out to Beaufort to see what the town is like and to interact with the people from Rainbow Serpent to a get that feeling about what the people are like,” he said.
We are looking for opportunities to create a reason for people to do a day trip from Ballarat or Melbourne to Beaufort to get ready for the bypass.
- Liza Robinson
Rainbow Serpent Festival organisers will bus festival-goers into Beaufort throughout Australia Day, helping to increase participation and raise money for the Beaufort pool at the pool party.
Vegemite themed food on cafe menus will be a novelty for both visitors and locals, part of a plan to create Vegemite themed tourist attractions and a museum on the man who invented Vegemite Cyril Callister who was born in nearby Chute.
The Pyrenees Pantry will offer a Vegemite brownie, Vegemite, cheese and parsley scone and Vegemite pie, while the butcher will sell his renowned Vegemite sausages.
Beaufort Progress Association president Liza Robinson said the initiative was part of a move to create a Vegemite momentum as a more permanent tourism hook to be ‘bypass ready’.
“We are looking for opportunities to create a reason for people to do a day trip from Ballarat or Melbourne to Beaufort to get ready for the bypass,” she said.
“Hopefully the retailers will find it successful enough that they keep it ongoing.”
The Beaufort market will run from 9am to 4pm on Saturday.
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