An abundance of sunshine and blue skies bolstered crowd numbers at Spring into Corrimal on Sunday, with the annual festival recording its biggest attendance ever.
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Organisers said an estimated 45,000 to 50,000 people took advantage of the warm weather to celebrate all things Corrimal, prompting organisers to hail the event a huge success.
‘‘We got 5000 to 10,000 more people than last year, with families coming from southern Sydney, and western Sydney and the Illawarra,’’ Corrimal Chamber of Commerce president Paul Boultwood said.
‘‘The committee is very happy to be able to bring this to the community on such a beautiful day.’’
Mr Boultwood said the aim of Spring into Corrimal was stamping the township on the map as the jewel in the northern Illawarra crown.
Among the highlights was a performance by X-Factor competitor Michael Sattin, aka Mick on Wheels, the grand parade, and more than 240 market stalls.
The Corrimal citizen of the year award was jointly taken out by Rita and Sean Rapley, who campaigned for the building of an inclusive public playground at Corrimal.
The playground, named after the couple’s four-year-old disabled son Luke, includes a wheelchair-friendly carousel, colour-coded, textured sections for visually-impaired children, areas where hearing-impaired children can interact with noise and vibration and different active and quiet zones, as well as a water play area for children with autism or other cognitive disorders.
