General News
30 April, 2025
It was the greatest: Catto
By CHRIS EARL THE Rheola community has stood united and delivered another great day of traditional country entertainment. Easter Monday’s 152nd charity carnival had family groups arriving soon after dawn to complete preparations for a day that...
By CHRIS EARL
THE Rheola community has stood united and delivered another great day of traditional country entertainment.
Easter Monday’s 152nd charity carnival had family groups arriving soon after dawn to complete preparations for a day that attracted thousands of people.
Many were returning patrons to the carnival raising funds for Inglewood and District Hospital and Maryborough District Health’s Dunolly campus.
Former Rheola resident Karen Weston, of Wedderburn Junction, was among them with grandchildren Franklin and Albert, the fifth generation of Karen’s family to attend the carnival.
Maree Marsh and daughters Jessica and Lucy were selling sandwiches, filling in for Maree’s mother who missed the carnival for the first time in 45 years.
“She’s usually here making sandwiches, so we are carrying on the tradition,” Maree said.
For carnival president Matt Catto, it was a day of big smiles.
“Isn’t this the greatest,” he said as crowds milled around the Miss Rheola judging.
“We’re only a small community of about 50 people but we put on a show that brings people back to Rheola. I always say it but if the carnival founders walked through the pioneer memorial gates again today, they would recognise the event that has been a Loddon institution,” he said.
Matt and cousin Glenn sung the success of Monday’s carnival when they joined entertainer Greg Champion at the microphone for an impromptu sing-a-along as spectators relaxed on hay bales.
It was Champion’s first visit to Rheola and he was an instant hit. “It’s a great day,” he said, a sentiment echoed by Allison Nye and Robert Hall from Castlemaine.
They said: “We were driving back from Wycheproof last Easter and heard about Rheola. “We’d normally go to Maldon on Easter Monday but decided to come here this year,”
Loddon Mayor Dan Straub was equal in his praise of the carnival during the official opening ceremony.
“The carnival is a Loddon icon and has a proud history of raising funds for local hospitals and the community,” he later said.
And as the sun set on another carnival, hints of rain and hope for local farmers hovered in the sky ... and stayed there.
But for the carnival team, they will to do it all again in 2026.