WHAT’S ON THIS WEEK 🎟️

• SATURDAY AND SUNDAY, 20/09/25-21/09/25 | Warrnambool Running Festival

• SATURDAY, 20/09/25 | Colac Taiwanese Moon Festival

• SATURDAY, 20/09/25 | A Tribute to the Eras of Taylor Swift

🗞️ Latest Headlines

🌕 Loss, family and friendship: The story behind Colac’s first Taiwanese Moon Festival

The Taiwanese Moon festival, celebrated by Taiwanese people around the world, marks the mid-autumn harvest and is a celebration of family (and barbecue). 

Jo Crosbie moved from Taiwan to Colac six years ago. Her father died shortly after last year’s Moon Festival, and in response Crosbie decided to pour her energy into creating Colac's own Taiwanese Moon Festival, the first of which will be held at the showground this Saturday (September 20).

“The Moon Festival in Asia actually means that the family has to be together, friends together, and we share everything,” she said.

Here’s how she describes the festival: “It’s like Christmas, but a bit different. We eat food, share moon cakes, have a barbecue and everyone looks at the moon. The special thing is it doesn’t matter who you are, or where you are, we all share the same moon.”

The events start from 2pm, will feature lantern-making, Chinese yo-yos, a movie zone explaining the story of the moon, food trucks offering different Asian dishes, and a traditional lion dance performance.

“For this event, all of the financial part, for hiring everything, is all from the Taiwanese community group only, we just want to do more for the community,” Crosbie said.

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🪩 All dressed up and nowhere to go: Colac’s young people frustrated with limited nightlife

A lack of nightlife in Colac has left young locals forking out hundreds of dollars on weekends away in Geelong and Melbourne.

I spoke to several Colac locals in their 20s to hear their concerns. Most agree the club scene in town is flatter than a schooner left overnight.

“All of my friends and some older people that I have talked to think that Colac just has nothing for younger people anymore,” said 22-year-old Chloe Grech. 

Before Covid, Colac locals could go to Piano Bar until 1am and Ms Scarlet (formerly HUSH) until 3am. Both venues reopened after lockdowns but have since closed, with the latter only used now for private functions.

Other former venues at The Bar’s current address - Sketa’s Bar, which closed in 2024, and its predecessor The Place to Be, which shut before Covid - also closed at 1am.

Travel to a larger city in search of bars and clubs and the costs soon start to mount up - transport, accommodation, food, drinks.

A major accommodation search engine had the starting price for a room in Geelong on Saturday night (September 20) at $120. 

Joel Bellchambers, 22, has all but given up on Colac. “I never go out in Colac. I’ve stopped because there’s little to nothing in Colac anymore, other than [Colac] Tenpin Bowl,” he said.

Others point to the decline in venues as the biggest blow. One 22-year-old man, who asked not be named, said: “We only have one place and that’s The Bar. The closure of Ms Scarlet had a big effect on the nightlife here in Colac.”

Even the owners of established Colac venues like The Bar and Colac Tenpin Bowl are eager to see more places open their doors.

Luke Shalley, who runs Colac Tenpin Bowl, which offers Colac patrons a place to go until 11pm on Friday and Saturday nights, said Colac’s “lack of options that are open late or have different atmospheres makes it less appealing to go out”.

The Bar owner Kris Seabert also pointed to Colac’s lack of taxis in peak times, saying it can take up to an hour to get a taxi at 9pm. 

Both Shalley and Seabert believe collaboration with new venues will be key to rebuilding a nightlife scene in Colac.

“If we don’t see each other as competition, but more as a network, hopefully it does come back to that situation where people think, we’ll start at The Bar, then we’ll go up to the Union for a bit,” Seabert said.

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On your feed 📱

I stopped by the Colac Botanic Gardens this week after learning some interesting history of the site, as well as a handful of West Vic’s other gardens.

Did you know the man behind Melbourne’s Royal Botanic Gardens also left his mark across our region?

Watch the video below for the full rundown.

In another round of street interviews with locals, this time in Colac, I asked folks for their thoughts on Artificial Intelligence - does it worry them or excite them?

Listen to their responses in the video below.