Surfest, the region’s annual celebration of surfing, gets under way this weekend, with the Lake Mac Festival of Surfing at Redhead on Saturday and Sunday as the launch event.
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The fourth Lake Mac Festival of Surfing is shaping up as the biggest and best yet. The festival has received a huge boost this year with the addition of the richest Stand Up Paddleboard (SUP) contest in Australia, which will bring some of the country’s best SUP surfers to Redhead.
The inaugural Lake Mac FOS ECS Boards Surf SUP and Paddle Battle is a $23,000 contest featuring three SUP surfing events in men’s, women’s and mixed divisions, and four ocean-racing Paddle Battle events.
The Lake Mac Longboard Classic and Lake Mac Shortboard Masters will also be contested, while there will be plenty of complementary activities for spectators, off the water.
These include market stalls on both days from 9am until 2pm, free yoga at 8.30am Saturday (BYO towel), drumming sessions (10.30am and 12.30pm Saturday and Sunday) and skateboarding workshops on Sunday.
Lake Macquarie is a City with a strong surfing culture and we are proud to be involved with Surfest. It is a festival that brings our communities together, promotes healthy lifestyles and is a fantastic showcase for our region’s beautiful beaches.
Meanwhile at Glendale elite athletes of another discipline will be at the Hunter Sports Centre on Saturday night for the Hunter Track Classic.
This event continues to grow in stature and was in December recognised as one of the best single-day meets in Australia in the All-Athletics World Rankings. Ranked second among one-day meets in Australia it was also placed 199th in the world, ahead of high-profile meets such as the finale of the Nitro Series. The top national ranking went to a high-performance meet run by Athletics Australia at the Australian Institute of Sport in Canberra.
Pelican Boat Ramp
Construction of the new, improved Pelican Boat Ramp is a step closer, with the appointment of a contractor to finalise the design and build the facility. The new facility, which will replace the damaged ramp on the same site, has been designed to guard against erosion and to improve accessibility. The new ramp expected to be ready for the community to use by mid-2018.
