'This is the one day of the year when everyone wants to be Chinese,' grins Russell Jack, before leading his beloved imperial dragon, Sun Loong, into Bendigo's dappled sunlit streets for the annual Easter Festival parade.
Bendigo is an Australian city of Christian churches, cathedrals, colleges and seminaries, and his comment would have probably surprised the discriminated-against Chinese workers drawn to the central Victoria goldfields in the 19th century.
Today, as church bells peal melodically over the city's Victorian-era architecture, the world's longest imperial Chinese dragon is about to stretch its legs; Chinese and Caucasians alike have gathered to carry him through the streets.
'It's fantastic to be a part of this event, it makes me feel strong,' says one young man, who answered a job advertisement that read, 'Dragon legs wanted'.
'What time is it? Dragon time!' the team roars, before 55 pairs of legs rush off to line up beneath the 100-metre-long Sun Loong. It takes a great deal of noise to awaken an imperial dragon from his year-long slumber, but, as drummers and lion teams from around Australia gather in Dai Gum San, on the forecourt of the Golden Dragon Museum, noise is in abundance.
With an explosion of firecrackers, crashing symbols and beating drums, 19 lions twitch, tremble and shake their glinting headdresses and shimmering mirrored legs. Quivering in anticipation, they prance on hind legs before bowing down in reverence towards the museum.