Send It Soaring

Skies spanning the Cullen Bay Lawns pop with colour this month, as the bright and bold event that is the Darwin Kite Festival returns for a second year, this time, across two huge days.

^{By Tierney White}

AFTER LAUNCHING KITES at the hugely successful inaugural event in 2023, the Darwin Kite Festival returns to give kite-gazers – young and old – something extra special to peek at, with hundreds of giant and colourful kites expected to take to the blue Top End skies.

Darwin Kite Festival invites revellers to look up, yes, but also down and sideways – there’s more to this sweet little festival than what floats above.

Enjoy local fare from a wide range of local food trucks and nearby eateries, and free kids’ entertainment with bouncing castles, facepainting, music, roving performances, and more.

Little ones get the chance to decorate their own kites, and can order one ahead of time to partake in the decorating workshops before they take flights in the public fly zone. A delight for young and old alike, one Darwin daddio says he’s definitely taking his two small children along.

“I guess nothing like this necessarily comes to Darwin very often, and kids love the magic of seeing these huge things in the sky, it’s pretty awesome,” he says.

“It’s appealing to kids – and to grown-ups – and there’s other cool stuff there, too. It’s outside, near the beach, and heaps of other families go along. It’s pretty exciting.”

New this year is The Kite Express and Kite Shuttle, free and dedicated bus services to get you and the family safely to and from your sky-gazing experience.

So get your Mary Poppins on – let's go fly a kite and send it soaring!

Darwin Kite Festival
WHEN FRI 20 & SAT 21 SEP
AT CULLEN BAY LAWNS
COST FREE
INFO activtedarwin.nt.gov.au