Richard Hobson and Hollee Simons led the way for Bathurst with their age category wins in the half Ironman distance while Luke Gillmer's performance in the classic event was the best overall finish of the weekend for a Wallabies member.

Gillmer came home sixth over the 1km swim, 60km bike and 10km run after leading the field out of the water.

Considering a tactical misstep he made over the bike leg Gillmer was thrilled to complete the course in two hours 38 minutes and 14 seconds.

"I haven't done a race of that distance against good athletes for a while so I was pretty happy with that. I didn't think it would happen so that's a good sign," he said.

"I had a really good summer. Being a teacher there's five weeks off work so I tried really well over that time and I've got the results.

"I thought leading out of the swim would give me a motivation boost. I was stoked to lead out of the water. Where it went wrong was that I tanked the first 30kms of the bike. I rode it like an Ironman. I just had bad tactics and ended up back in 10^th."

Gillmer had enough in reserve to make a charge on the run and missed a top five finish by just 25 seconds.

The man who came out of the water just behind Gillmer, Travis Shields, went on to win the race in 2:29:20.

Gillmer used the race as preparation for the Port Macquarie and Cairns half Ironman races in May and June respectively.

Kristy Powyer was the other Bathurst member to take on the classic distance, finishing in 3:20:05 and scoring a top 10 finish in a competitive division.

Bathurst was represented in the 25.75km sprint by a packed field of Tim Miller (1:15:45), Keith Tuynman (1:17:32), Christopher Howarth (1:17:35), Matt Hayes (1:27:15), Renee Covington (1:31:34) and Jessica Adams (1:45:49).

Hayes and Covington scored podiums in their categories.

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Kate Malligan (44:01) and Amanda Hayes (51:29) contested the super sprint.

Bathurst's success carried over to teams events where Maddie Roche and Danielle Patterson were victorious in the women's aquabike.

"It's magic to see so many people there," Gillmer said.

"We're really strong out this way and we've got so many people spread across different age groups and doing very well."

Tuynman added to those sentiments, saying people lap up the atmosphere at Huskisson.

"The swim's always fantastic in the salt water. It's usually smooth, warm with crystal clear water. The run course is along the white sandy beaches on the bay and the bike's a little challenging in some areas," he said.

"For a lot of those people down there that was their first time at the event and I think they'll be back. They seemed to really enjoy it.

"I wanted to break 1:20 and I managed to do that, now it's just about trying to get my foot right now to do Ironman Cairns during the June long weekend."