| Held every February, the Sydney Gay & Lesbian Mardi Gras has grown to be the biggest of its type in the world. A million people line Sydney's streets to see floats so colourful, and outfits so outlandish that Brazilian carnevalists would blush with embarrasment. Streets are blocked off, pubs and bars en-route are jammed, and the gay and lesbian community party for days. It's their Christmas. Straight folk are allowed along for the celebratory ride but this is a celebration of gay culture. The event began in 1978 with a parade of 1000 people marking International Gay Solidarity Day. These were much less liberated times and there were clashes with police that led to arrests for 'lewd behaviour'. These days gay and lesbian police march openly - in uniform - in the parade. The whole thing involves thousands of performers. Religious types are ever resentful of the wanton sexuality but are generally seen as part of the lunatic fringe during this miasma of colour. The parade is often political with current affairs figures lampooned in gigantic papier mache floats. It's an eyeful of a party and not to be missed. |
| There aren't many race meetings in the world where most spectators arrive by light plane but the Birdsville Races in Far Western Queensland are one. Held in DATE, they attract X,000 people for a weekend of beer, betting, and outback fun. This isn't Ascot or Flemington. Dress is boots and cowboy hats or costumes so outlandish the Mardi Gras entrants would blush. Well, they wouldn't but when you're out in the desert and had a few beers you can wear what you want. The town of Birdsville has limited accommodation for the event - the population outside race day is about 200 - so people bring camping equipment or sleep in the back of the major transport device of the day, The Ute, generally accompanied by blue heeler dog and drunken mates. The horses are generally nothing to threaten the Kentucky Derby but for a glimpse at what Australians get up to in remote areas - the event is hold close to the Queensland, NSW and NT border (ie, a long way from Kansas) - the Birdsville Races should be on your schedule. |
| Boxing Day each year sees Australians give their annual fig about yacht racing, when thousands of spectators cram every vantage point on Sydney Harbour to see the start of the Sydney to Hobart Yacht Race. The harbour becomes a mass of colour as the spectator craft jostle with official craft, all in the hope of seeing large boats with colourful sails nick off out through the heads and begin the journey down to Tasmania. It truly is a colourful thing to see, even if you don't know what's going on. Find yourself a friend wth any sort of boat, be it a dinghy with a little put-put motor or Rupert Murdoch's 200-foot prawn-infested cruising juggernaut, but get on the harbour on the 26th of December. If you can't, there are several excellent vantage points with Bradley's Head on the north side of the harbour (opposite the Opera House) and South Head both excellent, albeit extremely popular viewing positions. Get some friends, get a couple of cold beers and a picnic, and you'll be standing amongst an excellent way to get over any lingering Xmas hangover. |
| Dubbed 'The race that stops a nation', The Melbourne Cup does just that. A 2:50pm on the first Tuesday in November, the whole country downs tools and tunes in. People that have no interest in horse racing have a bet. School children are allowed home early to watch it on TV. The entire state of Victoria has a holiday. Flemington, where the race is held, is a heaving miasma of champagne, funny hats, colourful dresses, jockeys, punters, beautiful people, ugly people, normal looking people and those who are sort of non-descript - aka everybody. At least 150,000 people get to the track, and the same happens at every suburban and metropolitan race track in the whole country. There are meetings everywhere, from Kalgoorlie to Cairns, any of which would be an excellent place to gauge the nation's obsession with gambling. Australians go mad for 'The Cup', everyone becomes an expert and sweepstakes are held in offices, pubs, clubs, classrooms and parliament houses around the country. As a way of seeing how Australians tick, getting to Flemington on Melbourne Cup Day is right up there with watching them toss coins on Anzac Day. |
| ANZAC was the name given to the Australian and New Zealand Army Corps soldiers who landed on the Gallipoli Peninsula on the 25th of April, 1915. For the fledgling nation of Australia it's first test was Gallipoli. The battle ended in glorious defeat but the courage shown by men running at certain death is honoured on this day every year. All Australian towns and cities pay their respects to these soldiers and those who fought after them with dawn services, marches, and games of two-up. For the visitor, a two-up ring is a sight to behold. Held in bars, pubs, clubs and RSLs (Returned Soldiers Leagues Clubs) the country over two-up is a betting game involving two or three coins. Punters bet among each other whether the coins will come down heads or tails. It is that simple. But the amount of smoky, beery, excited noise engendered by this process is wrought by the money flying around and coupled with the knowledge that the very men honoured today played this game on the beaches of Turkey in 1915 and every war since. Two up on Anzac Day is something special, it's more than a betting game - though money flies around like paper at the stockmarket - it's a celebration of the deeds of those that fought for Australia. Funnily enough, the game is illegal every day bar Anzac Day. |
| Invented circa 1850 to keep cricketers fit in winter, Aussie Rules is a hybrid of rugby, gaelic football and a charming Australian schoolboy pursuit called 'mug the dill with the pill' that involves gang-tackling the unfortunate soul who has hold of the football. The game (Aussie Rules, not MTDWTP) is played on an oval-shaped, polo field-sized ground between two teams of 18 players each. The idea is to kick the ball through two upright poles and earn six points. Miss and you get one point, or miss so badly the ball misses the smaller of the adjacent posts and you get zero. No points are gained for bumping your opponent so hard his teeth rattle but you wouldn't know it the way these blokes throw themselves around the field. A free kick is gained when a 'mark' is taken, awarded when a kick is fielded on the full. This can be the most spectacular of sights, players 'ride' the backs of their opponents (and team mates) so high they often concuss themselves when they fall back to earth. The players pass the ball between themselves by hitting the ball with their bunched first and can't run without bouncing it every 10 metres. Otherwise, that's about the extent of the rules. Every contest could go either way, the umpires are routinely called half-wits (and much, much worse, about 100 times a game) and the rules are so hypocritical that it's little wonder no-one on Earth bar Victorians and some scattered tribes in Tasmania know what's going on. Crowds routinely reach 100,000, most of whom are as knowledgeable about the history of their team as a history lecturer from Rhodes knows about ancient Greece. Consequently, an Aussie Rules match is an absolute must see on a trip to Australia. |
| What do you do if you're in Alice Springs, 1500km from the nearest water and you want to have a boat race? Well, you have a boat race. Every September normally normal people gather in Alice to crew boats in a river with no water. Calling themselves Vikings and pirates many of these vessels are armed with mortars and high pressure water cannons. In 1962 the denizens of this dead-central Australian town decided to have a boating regatta similar to what Oxford and Cambridge compete for on the Thames. The multi-event program attracts many local and international participants from the audience who often finish up on world TV news paddling canoes with sand shovels. It's complete madness - and that's before they start to party. Territorians know how to drink, there can be no argument. The event is run by Rotary Clubs, an organisation that raises millions for charity. As they say in the centre, it's a bloody good bash. |
| The BDO is a summer music festival and Australia's biggest travelling roadshow. Like a mobile Glastonbury-Woodstock the show has featured in recent years bands like Limp Bizkit, Coldplay, PJ Harvey and Placebo. In the past top acts such as Nirvana, the Red Hot Chili Peppers and Bjork have made the trip down under. However, as the event cements its reputation on the international music festival calendar, the problems of massive gigs present themselves. In January 2001 hundreds of concertgoers were treated for heat exhaustion and dehydration as the temperatures soared to more than 36C on the day of the Sydney concert. Limp Bizkit pulled out of the event upset at security arrangements after several people were hurt in a crush. Tragically a young woman had a heart attack and died. The event is scheduled to continue though security and provisions are sure to be stringent. |
| For those who like motor vechicles to be great thumping machines of angry muscle - or something equally lyrically waxed - the Summernats held in the normally placid city of Canberra in early January are for you. The promotional blurb says its 'Australia's Biggest Horsepower Party' and you really can't argue. There's chrome, noise, beer, heat, engines, beer and, of course, more wet T-Shirt competitions than Porky's IV. What's arguably the best thing about the 'Nats is checking out those that proudly call themselves rev-heads, generally men in their early 20s whose mothers probably love them. It's where street machine enthusiasts meet, display and strut their mechanical stuff. It's the see-and-be-seen capital of the rev-head universe. These are highly customised, modified and faithfully restored cars from early model street machines through to the cutting edge, late model, "techno" cars. There are also Burnout competitions - held in the 'worlds first and only purpose-built burnout facility' - where more smoke is created than forest fires. They cruise around checking each other out, get drunk for four days, then crown some lucky girl Miss Summernats. Truly this is hog heaven. |
| Tropfest is the world's largest short film festival and is held one night in February each year in Sydney's Domain, Royal Botanic Gardens and cafes on Victoria Street, Darlinghurst. Tropfest also screens nationally in Australia's capital cities. The aim is to 'showcase the work of emerging filmmakers and to give them the opportunity to screen their films for their peers in a festive environment'. For everyone else it's a chance to watch free films while drinking vino on a warm summer's night. Each film must contain a 'signature item', something inanimate the organisers decided months previously to ensure the film was made for Tropfest. The event began in 1993 when a local actor/director John Polson screened one of his own short films at the Tropicana Café in Darlinghurst. 200 people crammed the café. The next year 2000 showed up and chaos reigned on the café strip. Last year it's estimated 100,000 watched the entries in The Domain, while capacity audiences filled the interstat |
Culture Shock 2010
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The spirit of adventure remains well and truly alive in the Red Centre. A modern-day frontier town, Alice Springs' rugged backdrop of Spinifex plains, gorges, peaks and chasms set the scene for a variety of outback adventure activities...
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