The population is expected to swell this Easter weekend in Nundle for the 160th anniversary of the gold rush, to be celebrated at the 2012 Nundle Go For Gold Chinese Easter Festival on Saturday and Sunday, April 7-8.
The Nundle Go For Gold Chinese Easter Festival has a Chinese and goldfields theme, honouring the significant role of Chinese and European migrant miners and storekeepers in the development of Nundle and nearby Hanging Rock.
The event is the combination of two festivals, the Nundle Go For Gold Festival, which started in 1998, and the Nundle Noodle Market, held in November 2000.
The allure of gold continues to attract people, over and above the 16,000 who attend the two days of the Nundle Go For Gold Chinese Easter Festival. The gold panning demonstrations at the Festival are among the most popular attractions of the event, as generations experience the thrill of watching the gleaming metal emerge from earthy river gravel.
Four gold nuggets, worth about $60 each, are up for grabs at the gold panning demonstrations, ramping up the potential for gold fever.
Fresh from more than 80 performances in Sydney for the Chinese New Year, the Australian Yau Kung Mun Association will bring its impressive Chinese Lion Dance on Poles, three metres above street level, and two 15-metre long celebration dragons brought to life by nine young dancers.
Nundle Go For Gold Chinese Easter Festival Committee Chair, Danny Ponton, says another innovation at this year’s event will be goldfields themed street theatre.
Festival-goers on Jenkins and Oakenville Streets will witness characters recreating scenes similar to those played out in real life 160 years ago on the Nundle and Hanging Rock goldfields.
“There will be a town crier, trooper, miner, story telling and bush music,” said Danny.
“We’re hoping this will be especially popular with children and we are offering a prize for Best Dressed Colonial Child.”
Other popular children’s entertainment includes story time presented by Central Northern Regional Library and the Magic of Lindsay Gardner show.
Nundle resident and musician Toni Swain, just back from a year living in Tasmania, is a regular stallholder, among about 100 market stallholders who usually exhibit at the festival.
Toni’s partner Jeff Gibson and his band Gibbo and the Fat Lambs are among the live performers on the bill at the festival. They will be joined across the village by traditional Chinese music performers David and Eva Wei, and fellow local musician Bruce McCumstie.
For further information on the Nundle Go For Gold Easter Festival, visit nundle.com.au/events/g4g or telephone Nundle Visitor Information Centre on (02) 6769 3026.
