It’s not long now until the Colour Tumby Festival for 2023 and it’s worth every bit of the 600+ kilometre drive from Adelaide to this town on Eyre Peninsula to experience it.
Tumby Bay is around 50 kilometres north of Port Lincoln and over the March long weekend, from the 10th to 13th, it’s the place to be with loads of things to see and do over the four days of the festival.
The main drawcard of the weekend is to see more incredible murals being painted around town by street artists from Australia and overseas, adding to the already amazing works of art in town. Over the weekend you can wander to the sites they’ll be working on and see the progress on these astounding large scale works of art.
You can also visit art from previous years of the festival which adorn walls around town, with trail maps available from the information centre in town.
As well as the street art festival, there are plenty of other activities planned. Saturday morning will kick off with a 5km fun run, commencing at 8am. Even though it’s called a fun run you are more than welcome to walk the course which begins and ends at the Tumby Bay Yacht Club.
All ages and abilities are catered for with running events for the kids being held after the fun run. Not the fastest runner? It won’t matter, there are even prizes for the most colourful participant. To register, visit the Colour Tumby Facebook page and follow the link.
Other events held over the weekend include a car show along the foreshore, fringe acts including a concert by Australian rock legend Swanee (John Swan) on the Sunday night, markets, fireworks on the Saturday night, a festival hub and activities for the kids.
Unfortunately the jetty will be out of action for fishing as it was damaged during a storm last year and at the time of writing it still hasn’t been repaired due to the staggering cost involved to fix it. Hopefully that will happen in the near future, but in the meantime there are many more ways to keep busy in Tumby.
In between all of the organised events you can also enjoy spending time at either of the two local hotels, ones of the cafés or the bakery, browse the shops, bring the boat or try some beach fishing spots, take a walk along the foreshore path or just enjoy relaxing at the picturesque beach.
We went to the festival in 2022 and enjoyed it so much that we booked in again immediately for this year’s festival, and expect it to be just as entertaining and enjoyable, with the friendly locals and festival volunteers making everyone feel welcome.
In 2022 the festival attracted approximately 10,000 people over the weekend which has got to be good for the local economy and they deserve it!
If you haven’t got plans for the long weekend, consider the Colour Tumby Festival or add it to your list of future must visit destinations, I don’t think you’ll be disappointed at any time visiting this great little town in South Australia.
Happy trails
Glenys
Caravan Correspondent 