Camel Cup Racing Carnival in Alice Springs, Northern Territory, Australia – Silly Season!

Camel Cup Carnival – Another Thin Disguise for a Booze Up!

The Camel Cup is a popular annual event held in July that is held in the centre of Australia – Alice Springs, in the Northern Territory (see the official Camel Cup website).

Instead of racing horses around a track, Camel Racing is the main event of the day. Yes, these rather awkward beasts that like spitting everywhere have been adopted as a means of racing!

Like many other unusual events in Australia like the Cockroach Races, the Camel Cup is just another thin diguise for a booze up! That is, a gathering of some bizarre description is organised to attract masses of people to an isolated part of Australia to engage in beer drinking and having a great time! That’s probably because there is not that much to do in some of these places, hence, some pretty innovative social events are dreamed up which often become cultural icons!

However, camels are not native to Australia  – their homeland is in the Middle East and North Africa. They were introduced in the 19th century for transport purposes because they could last for weeks in the arid parts of the country without too much water and hence, didn’t die as often as much as other animals. Since the advent of the motor age, the camels went feral and Australia has the highest population of wild camels in the world!

In fact, some entrepreneurs are looking at exporting camels overseas – back to the Middle East and Africa! This sounds like an extreme case of Go Back To Where You Came From!

Camel Cup Video Footage

Here is some Camel Cup action! These camels look fast enough to be entered into the Melbourne Cup or the Kentucky Derby… not!

[youtube]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xvJZqKCVg-M[/youtube]

There’s probably a lot of sore heads the next day.

More Camel Racing Stuff

For more Camel Racing info, check out The Riddle Of The Camel Race.