"LET the celebrations begin", boomed Hastings town crier Gerry Adamson as a cannon reverberated over Tacking Point on the 200th anniversary of Matthew Flinders' famous trip past the Port Macquarie landmark.
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The Flinders Festival was officially launched at the Tacking Point Lighthouse on Wednesday but Hastings residents will have to wait until October for the four-day event celebrating the bicentenary of Flinders' naming of Tacking Point.
The festival, which organisers are hoping to make an annual event, will run from Friday October 4 to Monday October 7 and will include a national surf boat and ski race, official opening of the relocated Investigator Building at the Maritime Museum, a lantern walk along the shipwreck trail to the lighthouse and an arts display by Tacking Point Primary School.
Premier Bob Carr will also be in town to present the NSW Premier's History Awards, providing the perfect complement for the inaugural historical festival.
The awards recognise writers of historical-themed literature and are held outside Sydney every two years with Port Macquarie chosen as host for the first time.
The premier will present the history gongs at Timbertown on October 4 and it's also hoped to have him launch a set of new banners representing significant moments in the area's aviation history.
They will hang in the Port Macquarie airport terminal and include images of aviator Nancy Bird Walton who learned to fly around Kew and the Qantas jet named in honour of Port Macquarie.
The Flinders Festival was conceived by the Matthew Flinders Working Party after an idea of Bill Banks, founding president of the Lighthouse and District Progress Association, several years ago.
Hastings Council's new event coordinator Jeff Killick said the festival was designed to be an event for the people of the Hastings and involving each sector of the community.
