The National Trust Announces Programs For 2018 AUSTRALIAN HERITAGE FESTIVAL

The National Trust has announced that almost 1,000 events have been registered for the 2018 Australian Heritage Festival. The nation-wide Festival is the largest and longest-running grassroots festival celebrating Australia's historic, natural, indigenous and multicultural heritage. Now in its 38th year, the Australian Heritage Festival invites Australians to engage with their culture and heritage through a dynamic program presented across all States and Territories from 18 April to 20 May, 2018. The Festival is supported by the Australian Government through the National Trust Partnerships Program.

This year's theme is "My Culture, My Story" and celebrates the diversity of the cultures that have shaped Australian Heritage. The events showcase the breadth of the cultures in Australia as well as the places that are truly unique, on our National Heritage list. Highlight Festival events include the confronting history of Aboriginal incarceration at Fremantle Prison; a migration story highlighting the immigration journey of the Tiwaris, a Nepalese family now living in New South Wales; the evolution of Torres Strait masks in Townsville; Tales from the East: a look at the relationship between India and colonial Australia on at Old Government House in Parramatta; and, a tour of the Bendigo Gasworks, one of only a few intact 19th century gasworks in the world.

Chairman of the Australian Council of National Trusts, Brian Powyer, said: "The Australian Heritage Festival brings together people from all over Australia to share their stories, explore traditions and bring history to life through guided walks, tours, demonstrations and hands-on history experiences for everyone. "The Festival acknowledges the wide range of cultures that have made Australia what it is today.

It is a call to celebrate what makes us special, to share our differences and to come together over our similarities. It helps people, families and communities form connections with their local heritage and treasure the places they love," Mr Powyer said. The Australian Heritage Festival engages people with heritage by uncovering new stories behind local libraries, galleries, theatres, parks, bushland, historic spaces, archives and many more. Highlights of the 2018 National Heritage Festival include: NSW

• The Good Old Bad Days
  Sydney, 12 May, 2018
  Warren Fahey, cultural historian, author, broadcaster and performer will tell us the stories of the 2011 post code of Sydney's inner-east that offers a fascinating history of Sydney's high life, low life and, sometimes, very low life.
• Chinese market gardeners and storekeepers in North Sydney, 1870-1932
  North Sydney, 17 May 2018
  North Sydney Council's Local Historian Dr Ian Hoskins presents a fascinating insight into early Chinese migration to the North Sydney area. The Chinese have been barely visible in the historical record of North Sydney, but it was a place where Chinese people made their lives - some 70 of them according to the 1871 census.

VIC

• Anderson's Mill Heritage Weekend
  Smeaton 11-13 May, 2018
  Smeaton comes alive with a weekend of heritage, crafts, machinery, and classic trades. The Mills on the Air Amateur Radio Group will have a collection of radios and transmitters, a large array of vintage engines, tractors, and machinery will be on display, Goldfields quilts and spinners will also be demonstrating their skills, along with an exhibition of craft work, including dolls house rooms and miniatures.
• Let's Talk MCM Heritage: An Expert Panel Discussions
  Beaumaris 17 May, 2018What makes mid-century Australian architecture so unique and worthy of heritage protection? Why are we finally appreciating modernist suburban architecture built from the 1950's through to the 70's? An expert panel will celebrate, inform and advise on owning, buying and renovating mid-century houses.

QLD

• Two Cultures, One People
  Cooktown, 18 April to 20 May 2018
  The James Cook Museum in Cooktown, Qld, is in a town where the first recorded act of reconciliation between Cook's crew and the Bama took place. The museum takes pride in telling this story from both perspectives, Indigenous and British.
• National Heritage Listed Qantas Hangar Guided Tours
  Longreach, 18 April to 18 May, 2018
  Visitors can enjoy a guided tour of the National Heritage Listed Qantas Hangar. The tour, which is only offered during the National Trust Australian Heritage Festival, allows participants to discover the history of the 1922 Qantas Hangar and its many owners and uses.

WA

• South Perth's Old Mill - Fact and Fiction
  South Perth - 16 May 2018
  The Old Mill has been through extraordinary changes in the last 183 years. Architectural historian Prof John Stephens and historical novelist Prof Ian Reid will give an illustrated and integrated presentation on the many-faceted cultural history of this landmark community building.
• Multicultural Belmont
  Belmont exhibition 2 April to 31 May 2018
  From Chinese market gardeners to Italian farmers, post- war migrants to local families, there are many stories of multicultural life in Belmont. Discover the many ways different cultures have lived, worked and played over many generations through photos, artefacts and stories.

SA

• Pioneer Women's Trail Walk: Hahndorf to Beaumont
  Tour 20 May 2018
  Walk in the bold, determined footsteps of our German pioneer women as they made the regular 35km trek from home in Hahndorf to market in Adelaide, lugging heavy baskets of produce as they went. The tour will take in the spectacular Adelaide Hills scenery and finish at Beaumont House for our annual Heritage Harvest festival.

ACT

• Landscape of Learning - Old Tuggeranong Schoolhouse
  22 April, 2018 2pm - 4pm
  Visit historic Tuggeranong Schoolhouse in its developing gardens and neighbouring landscape. Learn about creating suitable garden surrounds for this heritage property that opened as a public school for pioneer Tuggeranong families in 1880 and operated for nearly 60 years before closing in 1939.

This year the Australian Heritage Festival will be officially launched at the John Passmore Museum of Art in Woolloomooloo at 5.30pm on 18 April, 2018 by author, Elizabeth Farrelly. Ends MEDIA CONTACTS: For more information on the Australian Heritage Festival and to request interviews and imagery, please contact Claire Martin, Articulate on Claire@articulatepr.com.au, 0414 437 588 or Jasmine Hersee, jasmine@articulatepr.com.au, 0406 649 393 KEY DETAILSThe Australian Heritage Festival will run from 18 April until 20 May 2018 in multiple locations across every state and territory throughout Australia. To find out more about events go to https://www.nationaltrust.org.au/ahf/