In Bendigo until Australia Day, the temporary ice rink at the New Pavillion at Bendigo's Prince of Wales Showgrounds is open for daily sessions for individuals and groups wanting to go ice skating and tobogganing.

The rink is run by Lorraine Malone and her partner who hail from Adelaide and have been travelling around Australia with the rink for the past eight years.

It is the first time the rink, which opened at the showgrounds on November 29, has been in Bendigo.

After some initial issues with the ice chiller in December and then closing for Christmas and Boxing Day, Ms Malone said she was glad to see the ice rink busy again.

She estimated there were about 50 people using the rink on Saturday, many of them children. 

Ms Malone said an ice rink was a rare thing for many places in regional Australia.

"They might not have an ice rink or might not have had one for a long time, so there’s a whole generation of children and young children who haven’t learnt to ice skate," she said.

"For example today, the kids that came in today, not one of them could ice skate. They all held onto the sides (at first) but within about half an hour they were skating.

"It’s so nice to see that happen. They’re quite nervous about it too because they’ve not done it before."

She said ice skating was not accessible for many families, with trips to capital cities to visit large ice rinks often a big expense for parents.

"I know people have said, 'You know I don’t want to take my kids to Melbourne just for ice skating', just in case they didn't like it," she said.

As well as finding joy watching children have fun and learning to skate, Ms Malone said the travelling ice rink was also a great excuse to explore the country.  

"We started off in Mt Gambier, have been up as far as Cairns and now we're coming all the way back down again," she said.

"We've seen a lot of Australia because when you stay in a place you stay for a while, you don’t just pass through, you stay for about three months.

"By the time you leave, you know what the town’s like, you know some people and where everything is.

"It’s the idea of being able to travel. We think, where haven’t we been. Maybe we'll go to Western Australia next."

Click here for information about the ice rink's tickets and session times.