On the last Wednesday of Term I Burnt Bridge Orchestras went to Ararat and Lake Bolac to play in the lead­up to the Lake Bolac Eel Festival. A three-hour train trip to Ararat, lunch in the park, rehearsal in the Town Hall (now the Performing Arts) and we were ready for an evening concert! Most exciting was our Combined Work - Kooyang, telling the life story of the southern short-finned eel. (This is the same eel which travels up the Yarra River and Mullum Mullum Creek).

Burnt Bridge Junior and Senior Orchestras together played the musical sections, and a large and very proficient choir from Ararat West Primary sang with the orchestra. Children from Ararat West Primary had painted beautiful dioramas, and used eel puppets, to tell the first part of the eel story (which one person narrated). The second part of the story, which included the ancient Aboriginal ceremonial gatherings and feasts around Lake Bolac, were most effectively portrayed by Ararat Community Secondary School Drama students. In particular, the students did not gloss over the question of Aboriginal dispossession, portraying it very simply and openly.

Burnt Bridge students stayed overnight in shearers quarters of a local property, and next day Glenelg Hopkins Catchment Management Authority provided a very comfortable bus and an educational tour on environment and ecology as we travelled sixty kilometres to Lake Bolac. Here we repeated the performances, this time with Lake Bolac school. Our students could not believe how HUGE Lake Bolac is!

On the days we were performing walkers were progressing up the Hopkins River and Salt Creek. They had started ten days before, from the ocean at Warnnambool, to travel the journey of the eels, and the ancient paths of the Aboriginal people until, 150 kilometres later, they arrived at Lake Bolac.

The weekend following our visit the inaugural Lake Bolac Eel Festival was held - a truly joyous and successful occasion, as this was the first time for over one hundred years that Aboriginal people had been welcomed back to Lake Bolac.

Details of the Festival can be seen on www.eelfestival.org.au.