7 Bizarre Festivals in Australia ...

There are some really outrageous festivals in Australia, and when a simple bet was placed between mates back in the 1970s, who knew it would become a massive, televised and sponsored main event on the Aussie calendar, still running over 40 years later? Head out to Alice Springs where you can check out the real Gold Lions Camel Cup Race every year, and if you are keen, you can race a rickshaw in the arena as well. Belly dancers, beer, food stalls and live bands make this a rocking event.

The Beer Regatta is an annual event held each July in Darwin. A day of racing boats along Mindil Beach all sounds rather civilised, but it is anything but prim and proper at all. First of all the ‘’boats’’ are no luxury racing yachts. They are handmade vessels that have to be built almost entirely from beer cans. The rules say that the boats have to float on beer cans alone, but the rest is up to the teams, and some amazing constructions are created. The real fun starts when boats start to sink, or attack each other. Actually, like many festivals in Australia, disorder means fun - it’s total mutiny with water balloons and fire hoses and of course, plenty of beer.

Parkes is a small town in New South Wales with a resident population of just over 10,000 people, who quietly go about their day to day life until the arrival of the chaotic Elvis festival every year. Hound dogs, Elvis fans and thousands of impersonators rocking their side burns and sparkly body suits arrive in the small town for no less than 5 days of revelry and celebration of their idol – The King. Elvis may have left the building but he’s alive and kicking in one of the most eagerly awaited Australian festivals.

Even the name sounds weird and inexplicable, doesn’t it? Well when you know that Deniliquin is a small rural town in New South Wales and that Ute is the Aussie name for a utility vehicle (flatbed truck) and that a muster is a gathering, it all becomes clear. Think of the Deni Ute Muster as a Glastonbury for trucks and you kinda get the idea. The gathering usually beats the Guinness Book of Records standard every year as Ute owners from all over Australia make their way to Deni for vehicular fun and frolics.

Ok, so this one is not one of the oddest of festivals in Australia, but it’s kind of weird in that where fireworks are usually used at all kinds of celebrations and festivals, at Skyfire, it’s the fireworks themselves that are being celebrated. A spectacular display choreographed to music lights up the skies over Lake Burley Griffin in Canberra for one evening in March each year.

Yep – you guessed it. This festival celebrates the humble tuna fish. Every January, the town of Port Lincoln in South Australia holds the Tuna Toss World Championships. It is actually part of the Australia Day long weekend festivities and is a celebration of the tuna fishing industry, the mainstay of the town’s economy. Port Lincoln is home to Australia’s largest tuna canning plant. The current world record for the tuna toss is 37m!

The name sounds normal, right? So how can this be one of the bizarre festivals in Australia? Well regatta implies water and boats. Nothing odd about that, except that this regatta is held in Alice Springs, about 1500kms away from any large body of water! Does this bother them? Of course not. Participants construct bottomless crafts and “run” the now dry bed of the River Todd. There are some truly magnificent creations from bathtubs to scale model pirate galleons. Such fun.

The weird festivals in Australia may have you thinking this country is overall somewhat odd- rather it shows how Australians embrace the bizarre with a zest for life. Vacations in Australia should be about having as much fun as the locals so if you’re taking a trip down under, be sure to catch one of these events. What's the strangest festival you've ever attended?