What do you do with a river without any water?

I have mentioned the Todd River before; it is a long and wide and dry river bed that cuts through The Alice. You can't miss it, really. It is water-less almost all of the time, filling only after some really determined rain.

So naturally, what better place to have a regatta?

The Henley-on-Todd Regatta is an event so distinctly Alice Springs, it really just wouldn't fly (or float?) anywhere else in the world. Lucky for me, I left the hotel early enough on Saturday in order to see the bulk of the event.

Basically, the afternoon was filled with all different kinds of boating events, and teams and individuals compete with their "boats." The boats are basically metal frames roughly suggesting a boat, draped with banners and carried by the crew. Some of them are relatively tame, like the kayaking, which is the smallest boat manned by one person each and amounts to just a really awkward foot race. But you haven't seen awkward 'til you see the rowing Eights. Eight people stand in the frame of the boat in single file and hurl themselves along the river bed as fast as their feet can carry them; all well and good until someone in the middle wipes out and the people in the front don't stop and every one gets dragged into the coarse Todd sand... such good times. Another good one is the "Maxi-Yacht", which is teams of 8-10 carrying a considerably wider boat, but still hurdling along the same sandy expanse of river. There were some pretty spectacular collisions at the turning buoy in that one. And then there's the bathtub derby: 4 people carry a bathtub with someone in it up and down the arena (the two smart teams put a kid in theirs; the third team collapsed, including the adult in the tub).

The big end event is an all out naval battle, pitting three tricked out boat-trucks against each other. The weapons include hoses, water and flour bombs and flour cannons, and they all just chase each other around the river bed until the time is up. The winner is decided by applause, and you'll be happy to know that the pirates in their ship "The Nauteus" totally won. Apparently, it's the first time in recent memory that the Vikings haven't won. Which is cool. Because the vikings were wankers.

So this event has been happening for 47 years now. Only once has it been cancelled... due to water in the river.

Unbelievable.

(check out my pictures here: http://www.facebook.com/album.php?aid=2030328&l=7838a&id=173701181)