By TANIA PHILLIPS
MURWILLUMBAH has the Banana Festival , Melbourne has Moomba and now Tweed Heads is set to have a festival all of its own.
The inaugural Octopuses’ Garden will be held on August 11 along the foreshore of the Tweed River from The Tweed Heads Bowls Club around to Scales on Kennedy Drive.
Organising committee head and one of the driving forces of the event, Jim Wilson from Beacon Law in Wharf Street, said the event was aimed at bringing people to the town centre and highlighting the unque character of the region – and its nautical outlook.
He said the festival, being backed by the area’s peak tourism body Destination Tweed and the Tweed Shire Council, would feature a food, wine and music trail, highlighting local seafood and the spectacular scenery that is the backdrop of the Tweed Heads business region.
“It will follow a trail from Tweed Bowls Club to the Community and Civic Centre to Menittis to Tweed Marina to Trawler Wharf through to Regatta on to the Ivory Tavern and, thanks to the Tweed Shire Council’s new walkway, finishing at Scales on Terranora Inlet,” he said.
“We thought Tweed Heads needed to have its own festival.
“We decided the best way to do that was to celebrate what’s really unique about the Tweed.”
He said the event was about showcasing the region to help attract more people back into the central Tweed Heads.
The event will start small this year but Mr Wilson, who had been involved in Bleach, the Kirra Kite Festival and Cooly Rocks in recent years, said the committee, made up of local business people, hoped to build it into a two or three-day event over time.
