Normally held annually in November, the Winchelsea Festival and Wool Sports Championships is a popular festival in the town of Winchelsea. Situated about half way to Colac, Winchelsea is around 37 kilometres south west of Geelong.
The festival began in the year 2000 as the Wool Sports Championships and featured events like yard dog trials, shearing, roustabouting, wool classing and wool pressing. The wool events were immensely popular and brought together some of Australia’s best shearers in competition.
From 2005, the festival took on even more events and displays and has steadily grown to become the fantastic event it is today which undoubtedly celebrates everything about rural Australia.
The Winchelsea Festival features some fantastic musical entertainment including plenty of Country and Western. There are lots of local wares to seen and sampled with a market, with everything from locally grown gourmet food & wine and some good old fashion sausages and burgers. Crafts, home wares and novelties also make up many of the market stalls, and there are plenty of fun activities for the kids including rides and the always popular animals.
Being a country town, the Winchelsea Festival makes a terrific spot for country style events like CFA displays, the wood chop, the Ute show and the famous Ferret Cup.
The ferret cup sees a bunch of these inquisitive critters shoved into a PVC pipe; the first ferret to pop his head out the other end is the winner. This is one of the most popular events at the festival with young and old cheering on the ferrets.
Sadly the 2015 event was cancelled and 2014 remained the last time the event was held, let’s hope this fantastic festival will come back in the future.