Mussel festival not a hard shell

Thousands enjoy tasty delights

SEAFOOD sellers and suppliers flexed their mussels to treat a crowd of more than 20,000 that descended on Portarlington Mussel Festival on Saturday.

Patrons enjoyed tours of the local mussel fields, entertainment and of course the tasty molluscs, ranging from pies to paella and classic mussels baked in broth.

Portarlington Mussel Festival director Sheryl Follett said more than 100 vendors gave the huge crowd, many who packed the ferry to attend, a wide variety of choice.

“We had people flocking to the different vendors with the tomato-based mussels and I even saw mussels in champagne on one sign and the breadcrumbed mussels, they are gorgeous,” she said.

Ms Follett said families particularly lapped up the children’s entertainment, particularly warming to Toby the Dinosaur.

She said it would d be a focus moving forward as s the event hoped to bring even en more producers and chefs fs to show off their mussel talent ent next year. “The crowd was friendly and they were really enjoying the e music and children’s n’s section expanded this year and they were all over the place dancing,” Ms Follett said.

“We’ll have more mussel vendors next year and we certainly will be building up the entertainment for children.”

Tyson Lojko (above) on one of the postie bikes, part of the classic cars and machines display; and (left) 12-year-old blues guitarist Ned Moran belts out a song on stage.

Oliver McPherson, 4, and his uncle Alex Price (right) were among g the 20,000-strong crowd. wd.