A fantastic 2013 festival ...> more
SA Premier Jay Weatherill, with Mayor of the District Council of Copper Coast and President of Kernewek Lowender Inc Paul Thomas, in Moonta on May 24 for the festival’s official opening.
Wow what a 2013 Kernewek Lowender Cornish festival it was! More than 35,000 people from overseas, interstate and intrastate flocked to the towns of Moonta Kadina and Wallaroo on Yorke Peninsula last weekend to celebrate the 40th anniversary of the Copper Coast Cornish festival.
SA Premier Jay Weatherill officially opened the festival on Friday after viewing the furry dance down George Street. Crowds lined the streets too, for the maypole dancing and there were similar scenes the following day at Kadina, with the town square filled with stalls amid more entertainment from the rotunda.
Great great great granddaughter of famous mining Captain Richard Henry Hancock (Moonta Mining Company Superintendent 1864-1898), Catherine Hancock, led the national anthems and was a highlight of the week’s entertainment, delighting crowds with her beautiful voice at the town squares, and at the Meet the Cornish event, and at the Bonanza Variety concert.
All event s were a sell out, and organisers are thrilled.
Thousands enjoyed a Cornish pasty, and by Sunday at 1 pm, they were sold out.
The week’s events culminated in the spectacle of the Cavalcade of Cars and Motorcycles, with 420 vehicles winding their way from Wallaroo, to Moonta and onto Kadina oval for the Fun Fair.
"It was a really great atmosphere in 2013 and already local businesses and community groups are planning how they could do things event bigger and better in 2015" said Executive Officer Rosemary Cock.
So many special guests ...> more
V8 Supercar legend Norm Beechey with his wife Margaret, at Kadina oval.
Among the special guests at this year’s Kernewek Lowender were Grand Bard Maureen Fuller, Kernewek Lowender patron Diana Hancock, SA Premier Jay Weatherill, Senator Don Farrell (Federal Minister for Science & Research and Minister Assisting for Tourism), and former SA Premier John Olsen AO.
Crowds at Sunday’s Cavalcade of Cars & Motorcycles also were treated to a visit by retired Australian Touring Car Champion Norm Beechey, who won a prize in the Classic Car section for his Ford Mercury. Norm competed in the Australian Touring Car Championship from 1963-1972, winning the title in 1965 and 1970 and was inducted in the V8 Supercar Hall of Fame in 2000.
Program released for 40th anniversary Cornish festival ...> more
Download: Complete final program 2013
The six day program, running from May 20-26, is designed to involve the whole Copper Coast community, with a focus on this year being the 40th anniversary of this major South Australian event.
Past committee members and dignitaries are to be invited back for the 2013 event–and to a civic reception–to mark the 40 years of festival success since the inaugural event was staged in 1973 to such acclaim.
The 2013 program is again expected to attract tens of thousands of people from around Australia and the world to the Copper Coast region, with its record number of displays and associated activities organised by enthusiastic community groups, well complementing the traditional Kernewek Lowender events on offer.
Moonta Progress Association and Moonta National Trust are combining forces as organisers of the BankSA Moonta Parade and Street Party on Friday, May 24.
The Maypole and Furry Dances, the Procession, street stalls, Cornish pasty bake-offs, Queen’s Square entertainment, and the official opening will all be features of this event.
The major event on the Saturday (May 25) is the Rotary Village Green Fair in Kadina (staged by the NYP Rotary Club in conjunction with the Kernewek Lowender committee) where Victoria Square will be filled with stalls amid entertainment, children’s activities, the Cousin Jack and Jenny competitions (sponsored by NYP Quilters), and more Maypole and Furry Dancing.
On Sunday, May 26, the monster RAA Cavalcade of Cars and Motorcycles is again expected to attract more than 500 entries, commencing from the Viterra Marshalling yards at Wallaroo, and travelling to Moonta and on to Kadina, culminating at Kadina oval for the Cavalcade Fun Fair.
Traditional Kernewek Lowender events include the coveted Newbery Chemists Art Prize and Soiree, and the Cornish Association of South Australia is again presenting its impressive Gathering of the Bards and Dressing the Graves ceremonies, and its popular Cornish Language lessons, Cornish Seminar and Spiritual Retreats.
There is much on offer for food, written word and music lovers, too, with more evening concerts, writers events and feasts, and top billing on a long entertainers list is Catherine Hancock, the current lead soprano in Little Women the Musical who just happens to be the great great granddaughter of Moonta Mining Company’s most renowned superintendent, Captain Henry Richard Hancock.
Explore this website for more details of the final program, and for tickets information contact the Kernewek Lowender office at The Farm Shed Museum & Tourism Centre: 8821 4500, 50 Moonta Road, Kadina, or email kernewek@coppercoast.sa.gov.au