118 Australian Geographic
On Gallery Walk, in Eagle
Heights, winery staff (above, L–R)
Angie Morris, Kylie Scott and
Helaina Bench share a laugh in
front of the broomstick-wielding
scarecrow a colleague created for
the 2015 festival.LAT LONG: 27°55’S 153°11’E
Tamborine Mountain
Scarecrow Festival
Once a year Tamborine Mountain kicks up its heels when locals and visitors
share in a colourful festival that celebrates creativity and community spirit.
STORY BY JOA N NA H A RTM A N N PHOTOGR A PH Y BY DEA N SAFFRON
A
S THE SUN streams through eucalypts,
bottlebrushes and palms lining Main
Western Road on Tamborine Mountain
in south-eastern Queensland, a small
crowd gathers along the nature strip. It’s
a clear October morning and, like most spring days here,
the cicadas hum and the lorikeets squeak as they flit in
blazes of colour through patches of subtropical rainforest.
But today is no ordinary day. It’s the first morning
of the annual Tamborine Mountain Scarecrow Festival
and there’s an air of excitement. A car whirrs past the
locals gathering on the nature strip and toots its horn.
Everyone cheers and waves. It’s almost 10am and since
daybreak people have been stopping to see what Pippa
Collins’ family will put on show this year. They are
known for their captivating scarecrows and have, in the
past, won some of the festival’s most prestigious awards.
From under her wide-brimmed hat, Pippa beams
while stuffing straw into one of her creations. “We
wanted to get some movement and colour into it this
year,” she says, adding finishing touches to a straw
replica of Sydney’s Luna Park. Hay-filled acrobats and
clowns adorn the lawn in front of her parents’ home.
Pippa’s husband, Don Collins, and father, Peter Marks,
fix coloured balloons to the display, rushing to finish
the impressive artwork for judging. “We thought we
had tons of time to get it finished, but of course we’ve
had so many visitors already this morning and everybody
drops in for a chat,” says Pippa’s mother, Mary Marks.
“That is what this festival is all about.”
Located in the Gold Coast hinterland, about an hour’s
drive south of Brisbane, Tamborine Mountain has three
small villages: Eagle Heights, North Tamborine and
Mount Tamborine. During the third weekend of
October every year, from Friday morning until Sunday
afternoon, these villages come alive as imaginative scare-
crow sculptures spring up on footpaths, nature strips
and pockets of council land. Most are set up along the
festival’s 17km-long ‘Spot the Scarecrow Discovery Trail’,
which runs through all three villages.
As the 2015 Ta m b o r i n e
Mountain Scarecrow Festival
swings into life, husband-
and-wife team Pippa and Don
Collins (above) adorn their
straw replica of Sydney’s Luna
Park with handmade acrobats,
ballerinas, and scarecrow clowns.