Thousands of people marched from Canberra’s CBD to Old Parliament House on Saturday as part of a convoy protesting government COVID-19 restrictions such as vaccination mandates.

The marchers, many carrying Australian and Eureka Stockade flags, were joined by trucks on roads as they marched through the city.

Victorian man Mark Anania said he’d joined the Convoy to Canberra protests to fight vaccination mandates.

“We’re here for our freedoms,” he said. “We’re from Victoria, we’ve been through just about every rally in Victoria and we’ve come down yesterday just in the spur of the moment.”

“Stayed in our car overnight and like most people here we’ve been out of work since October, and just fighting for our rights as human beings to be able to choose whether or not we want to take a vaccine,” he said.

The Convoy to Canberra rally originally arrived in Canberra on Monday morning, when thousands of people gathered at Parliament House.

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Participants had spent the last week camping on the Patrick White lawns out the front of the National Library, but were evicted from the site by ACT Police and the Australian Federal Police on Friday. Many protestors moved peacefully to the Canberra showgrounds afterwards.