community-and-multicultural-festivals

Compare the eel recipes used by the Aboriginal people of Parramatta and colonial settlers

Each season when the eel was spawning along the Parramatta River, they would gather with other Indigenous tribes to celebrate and share stories.

After 1788, those practices were slowly lost as colonial settlers moved into the area.

On Sunday the annual Eel Festival at Elizabeth Farm in Rosehill will give visitors a chance to understand the ways of the Dharug people and how significant eel was to the way they lived.

Loxton Mardi Gras, Australia's oldest, celebrates its 60th year

That makes it one of the longest-running festivals in Australia and possibly the oldest festival in South Australia.

The Loxton Mardi Gras will be held this weekend and while "Mardi Gras" has become synonymous with the LGBTQI community, organisers of the Loxton festival hold firmly to the religious meaning behind the name.

"Mardi means Tuesday and Gras means grand," said one of the festival's organisers, Peter Magarey.

"It's a family religious festival to eat up big before the austerity of Lent."