Local residents are shaking their tail feathers in excitement, as the popular community event The Great Duck Race returns to Strathalbyn after a three-year hiatus.
Thousands of residents will be like a duck to water on November 19, filling Strathalbyn streets for a jam-packed day of fun, with The Great Duck Race, visiting cars in Shannons Adelaide Rally, and the SteamRanger’s Strathalbyn Duck Train bringing passengers from Mount Barker.
Presented by the Rotary Club of Strathalbyn, The Great Duck Race is a major fundraiser for the service group, which supports the community and is currently focusing on installing Automated External Defibrillators (AED) in the region.
Entrants can purchase a raffle ticket with a number which matches with one of the 2500 ducks floating down The Angas River in the Soldiers Memorial Gardens.
They will be up for chance to win from the $2000 prize pool, with $1000 as the major prize. The Corporate Duck Race involves local businesses, which are creatively decorating their ducks for a chance to win best dressed. The day will also include food vans, a market run by the Strathalbyn Country Women’s
Association, and children’s entertainment. Rotarians Craig Maidment and Norma Keily described the day as “massive”.
“It’s all happening in Strath... there’s something for everyone,” Mr Maidment said.
Mrs Keily added the entertainment will continue “from 9am in the morning until you’re exhausted in the afternoon”, with
visitors expected from Mount Barker. “With Mount Barker being such a bigger population and looking for things to do, I
think that’s a drawcard,” she said.
The Great Duck Race is believed to be a world-first of its kind, and a much-loved annual tradition for the town after it began in 1990.
In an effort to fundraise for the club, the then-Director of the Club Service Committee Frank Clennett bought 2000 small yellow ducks, presented the bill at the next Rotary Club meeting, and The Great Duck Race was off and flying.
Over the years, the race has evolved, with many creative ways to persuade the little ducks to race down the river.
In the second year, the ducks took 2.5 hours to make it to the finish line, so damming up the old swimming pool for a month prior proved to do little to increase water flow in the river.
The ducks toppled over the weir and were trapped in a vortex of cascading water where they remained.
The next year, the club used a fire hose mounted in a tinny and powered by a generator – an idea which remarkably failed when the tinny capsized and the generator ended up at the bottom of the Angas River.
Other times, water jets to small boats have encouraged the ducks, while a few sunk along the way.
Thousands of people typically turn out for The Great Duck Race, with the ducks pushed along by a wind machine.
In 2008, a wind machine was introduced, which sped up the process and made the ducks fly.
To purchase a ticket or for further information, visit (www.raffletix.com.au/ strathalbynrotary).
If local businesses or organisations would like to join the Corporate Duck Race, contact Craig Maidment on 0438 166 528.
