Water - who needs it?
Posted Thursday, September 11, 2008, 9:58 PM by Lonely Planet
Lamenting the loss of the old slippery slide in the backyard, and pounding your pals with water bombs? Worry not, climate change may have heralded the end of the backyard splashfest, but there's still plenty of summer fun to be had...
Take Alice Springs, Central Australia, one of the driest places in the country. Not an obvious spot for a boat race, there being no water and all, but that hasn't stopped the locals. This outback town is famous for its annual dry-river-bed boat race, the Henley-on-Todd Regatta.
Every August, locals and tourists in the thousands throng to the Alice to construct bottomless boats, jump in, and carry them around a race circuit. It's completely insane and hugely entertaining to watch (with a cold beer in hand, of course). The nautical nuttiness doesn't stop at boat racing – there's a Bath Tub Derby (four people carry a fifth around in a bath tub), a Boogie Board event (a lucky crew member sitting on a board gets towed around the circuit), kayaking, rowing, and a whole of other run-around-in-the-sand-and-make-like-its-wavy fun.
And if boating isn't your thing, check out the sand skiiing. Or, further afield, sandboarding (not-snowboarding) on sand dunes in Dubai, Cape Town or California.
We can do summer fun without water, we can.
- Lou Clarke
Labels: Alice Springs, Boating, water
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