The Colour Tumby Street Art Festival is over for another year and the town really outdid itself this year with a huge amount of entertainment and fun for all the family.

All ages were catered for over the long weekend with art, music, markets, car show, fireworks and an incredible aerobatics display team that blew us away.

The street artists in town this year were Martin Schlick (Masher Designs), Simon White (Simon White Art) and sand artist Steve Machell (Sandology). The finished designs were of a leafy sea dragon by Masher Designs, a tribute to these creatures that live under the town jetty, a WW1 themed design by Simon White Art next to the town’s war memorial which depicts Flanders Field battleground with a light horseman in the distance and nurse in the field of poppies. There’s also an incredible sand sculpture that incorporates a turtle, leafy sea dragon, dolphin and the Colour Tumby logo, by Steve Machell.

All of these works of art were completed over the few days of the festival, where you could revisit the artists at work and see the progress over time. In between checking on the artworks, there were also outdoor movies during the day and night, sand sculpting for kids, a fun run, dance workshops, art classes, a car show and more. A jam packed program of events from the Friday through to Monday.

The beauty of the festival, is that you can join in and participate in whatever events peak your interests or take a break from the busy foreshore area and surrounds when you need to. Staying at the Tumby Bay Caravan Park at the end of the Foreshore is a terrific option, with a walking path that leads all the way into the town, past the Yacht club, green park areas, and into the main hub of the festival.

Along the way make sure to keep an eye out for the fabulous mosaic art discs in the walking path. This ‘Leafy to Sleepy’ mosaic trail is a local community art project which shows a selection of wildlife that calls this marine and coastal environment home. The designs of the pavers and finished results were created by Karen Carr of Squashed Cocky designs, who has quite a few beautiful mosaic pieces around the Eyre Peninsula.

As well as all the entertainment, there were a huge amount of food and drink caravans to cater for a range of tastes.

The biggest surprise for many festival goers was probably the Silver Sharks Aerobatics display. This team of three planes, specialises in formation aerobatic displays and they were amazing with a show that went for around 15 minutes as they showed their skills and threw the planes around in the sky above us. A truly impressive display.

Tumby Bay has done it again with another successful street art festival and we can’t wait to visit next year to enjoy another year of fun and colour.

Our only hope is that the jetty which was storm damaged during last year, and then found to have some serious structural issues, will be fixed in time for next year’s festival, because we heard from some interstate visitors, that in years gone by they have stayed in Tumby for a couple of weeks, but without the jetty they are shortening their stay.

I have to agree, without a town jetty the fishing options aren’t as good if you don’t have a boat, and no doubt the people that live in Tumby are also missing the use of it. So fingers crossed, a solution will be found so that the jetty will once again be a highlight of the town during Colour Tumby and throughout the year.

Until next year Tumby,

Glenys