A flood of yellow at long-awaited race

By Owen Sinclair

Apr 21, 2025

What do you get when you mix 2000 rubber ducks with the waters of the Murray River?

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A quacker of a day — and that’s only half of what awaited crowds at this year’s Easter River Beaches Festival at Thompsons Beach.

The Murray River is no course for the faint-hearted.

Fallen gums scrape the surface with half-submerged claws while cross-currents send the unwary spinning in eddies.

But that didn’t stop precisely 2000 rubber ducks taking to the water in this year’s Easter River Beaches Festival Duck Race at Thompsons Beach.

At least twice that number, in humans, turned out to catch a glimpse of the action, which kicked off with music, food vans, games and interactive exhibits from Dutch Thunder Wildlife Shelter in the late morning of Easter Sunday, April 20.

Later that day, the Cobram Runners Club sent a cascade of yellow rubber ducks into the water from atop the former Cobram-Barooga bridge.

And the 2025 Duck Race was a-go.

Spectators lined the waterfront on Thompsons Beach, anticipating the yellow flood to come.

They didn’t have to wait long for the first ducks to appear in the distance.

And even as the crowd kicked up a cloud over Thompsons Beach in its attempts to stay abreast of the unfolding drama, the leaders of the pack rode the best of the Murray’s mighty current to pull away from the main body.

But there could only be one victor.

Concealed in the hands of organiser and Cobram Barooga Business and Tourism chair Nicky Goldsworthy, the winning duck was revealed to be duck number 1161, belonging to Callie Bennet of Sydney, who went away with the $1000 prize.

In second place was Daniela Visentin’s duck, no. 1402; the third-placed duck was local musician Jackie Lee McKean’s no. 1605.

Mrs Goldsworthy later said the event was growing bigger and bigger each year.

“The best thing I see when I look around is so many families, so many people, all very happy and meeting together at Easter time, which is great,” she said.

“Going with the crowd we’re getting now, with a couple of thousand people, I think we’re going to have to go up to 2500 or 3000 ducks.”

Mrs Goldsworthy said she already had a plan for next year’s event, involving golf balls.

The Courier’s Owen Sinclair was at Thompsons Beach to capture some of the family fun.