A SEA of yellow rubber ducks made their way down the Murray River on Wednesday for Swan Hill’s 29th annual SES duck race.
More than 350 people turned out to watch 2000 ducks float from the steps at Riverside Park to the Swan Hill Bridge for this year’s sell-out event on New Years Day.
CFA’s Harold Jochs provided entertaining commentary, guiding the large crowd through the 9 minute and 52 second race before the top 10 ducks were collected in a cage at the finish line.
While number 1645 was the first duck to be caught in the cage, hundreds of other ducks broke for freedom, escaping beyond the bridge before being scooped up by the crew of SES volunteers.
Swan Hill local John O’Laughlan was the lucky winner of this year’s race, taking home $1000 in cash after purchasing a $5 ticket at the Swan Hill Information Centre on Tuesday afternoon.
“I’ve never won anything in my life, it’s one good way to start off 2020,” Mr O’Laughlan said.
Second place Mel DeVincentis from Melbourne was in a similar boat, saying it was also the first time she had “ever won anything”, taking home $600 cash.
“It’s a great way to start the year. We’ve been coming up for five years and always bought tickets for the duck race,” she said.
Swan Hill SES unit controller Darren Barnes told The Guardian the duck race was yet another success for the community and organisers were pleased with the turnout at the event.
“It’s been really good, everyone enjoys coming down and watching the race and this year we had support from the Lions Club who did the barbecue who we haven’t had in the past,” he said.
“The duck race is our one and only fundraising event for the year and it gives us enough money to maintain the equipment we’ve got and also purchase new stuff.”
The funds raised at this year’s event will go towards a site scanning piece of equipment to give a three dimensional view of the bottom of the river.
“It’s called a sonar machine, which is basically a fish finder, that will help locating bodies in the river,” Mr Barnes said.
“It’s the sort of equipment that would make those sort of jobs a lot quicker and it gives a lot of closure.”
Mr Barnes thanked the community for their support, and the unit’s volunteers, many of whom helped on the day and in the lead up to the event.
“Thank you to our sponsors who provided some great prizes and all the public coming down and supporting us, and to Harold Jochs, he volunteers every year and does a great job.”
Member for Murray Plains Peter Walsh also congratulated the Swan Hill community for yet another successful New Years Day duck race.
“It’s a credit to Swan Hill that they sold out this year,” he said.
“It just shows the support that’s out there for the SES and how their major fundraising event continues to do well.”
