General News
3 January, 2025
New Year celebrated in style with 162nd Highland Gathering hailed a success
Maryborough ushered in 2025 with its usual Scottish flair as the Highland Gathering continues to be a spectacle like no other.
Celebrating its 162nd iteration, a beautiful summer day was bestowed upon Princes Park to welcome the sights and sounds that have made the celebration one of Australia’s longest-running cultural events.
The thousands in attendance were thrilled to see The Gathering return with excitement, none more so than Maryborough Highland Society sports secretary Nick Weaver.
“It was fantastic, the crowd was great, the street parade was fantastic, everything went to plan and you could see with the crowd we had that it was really good,” he said.
“The crowd was on par with last year, the grandstand and places around the oval and on the hills near the trees were all full.
“The highlight for me was The Girl on the Drum, it brings a tear to the eye all the time, it’s really nice to see it back and the mass band was so uplifting.
“We offer a whole event, we have got the pipe bands, strongman events, athletics, carnival rides, there is something here for everybody.”
While the High Street Parade, Girl on the Drum and Highland Dancing continued to excite, spectators were also treated to an athletic showcase which reached an extra mile of ability.
The highlight of the stacked schedule was Fran Fitzpatrick, who broke her own world record in the strongwoman masters category by achieving 39 feet three inches (11.9 metres) in the stone put.
Mr Weaver said this year’s competitions certainly added further intrigue to proceedings.
“It’s great to see world records be broken here in Maryborough,” he said.
“It doesn’t happen here very often so to see that happen in the strong ladies event by Ms Fitzpatrick was amazing.
“The Victorian Athletics League is doing a fantastic job promoting the athletic schedule and you see that each Highland Gathering.
“Last year we had 79 events, this year we had 94 events so athletics are growing which is great.”
Following cancellations of the 2021 and 2022 iterations due to COVID, Mr Weaver said he’s glad to see the Highland Gathering continue to build momentum as a mainstay of Maryborough.
“I was speaking to some food vendors who have been coming here for 25 years and they said ‘in the mid-2000s, it looked like it was going down a little bit because the crowd wasn’t here’,” he said.
“The previous years before COVID things started to pick up and crowds were growing, COVID came and I think now in the last two years things have really started to heat up.”