http://www.thatsmelbourne.com.au/Whatson/Festivals/MoombaFestival/2013/Pages/Moomba.aspx
Originating in 1955, Moomba has become an ever changing, yet classic event, boasting an incredible array of activities and events. Of course there is always tons of cultural foods, beer, and wine. That's a given. Moomba, celebrated on both sides of the Yarra River alongside the inner city, holds a highly publicized annual parade, in addition to large music line-ups on opening and closing nights, fireworks every night, and carnival rides on both sides of the river. There is even an event were people, dressed in costumes, try to run and glide as far into the river as possible using makeshift contraptions.
Additionally, a world-renowned water skiing and wake-boarding competition takes place in the river, where the best competitors in the world challenge themselves at water-skiing long distance jumps and wake-boarding trick competitions. To give you an idea, the world record holder for largest water skiing jump, an American named Freddy Kruger was competing (he was born before A Nightmare on Elm Street was ever filmed, for the record).
The festival stretches 4 days, but due to a completely filled weekend I wasn't able to get down to the festival until Sunday. The day actually started off with a free barbecue and petting zoo hosted by the apartment complex I live at. I have done several Australian animal oriented events by now, so the animals weren't anything new to me. But some notable ones included another snake (not sure what kind), a ring-tailed possum, wombat, and crocodile. Finally, a wombat that was awake and active! They can be hard to catch during the day due to their nocturnal sleeping schedule.
It started at noon and my first priority was food. They provided sausages, chicken kabobs, burgers, and tons of different drinks and sodas.
Afterwards, once the crowd had died down and I had a chance to talk to some friends, I went over to check out and hold some of the animals.
Above: The wombat! I blew up the picture so you could see it better. It's like a very large guinea pig.
Above: A wallaby joey in a simulated pouch
Above: A ring-tailed possum
After some time at the barbecue we went back to our apartments for a bit to get ready to head out to Moomba and were on the train by 3:30 pm to inner city. Once at Flinders Street we walked one block south to the south side of the river and headed down to the river bank walk. There were large carnival rides on both sides of the river, but here was the view looking north from the southern bank.
As we familiarized ourselves with the area and the events, we went to the first thing that caught our eye - a BMX competition. Compared to the upcoming water-skiing and wake-boarding competitions, the BMX competition was much more amateur. But still, the competitors were very good. Throughout the competition I saw several backflips, bar spins, and other flips and tricks I don't know the names of.
After watching for a bit we checked the schedule for Moomba online and noticed that the water-skiing long distance competition was starting soon. We headed towards the river and saw that the lawn was covered with people sitting, waiting for the competition to start. We found a place large enough for us all to sit down together and, within a few minutes, there were the first competitors going at it.
The water-skiing competition was the major event at the time, and not being very keen to go on the carnival rides we stayed and talked while watching the competition for a long while. Eventually, we went to get food. We found an cool Asian stand, had some Dim Sim, and headed off to walk around and look at what was going on elsewhere.
Among the food stands, crowd, rides, carnival games, and people setting up stages for bands later that night, we even saw an plane writing "Cloud Nine" in the sky.
After spending an hour or so exploring the festival, chatting, and showing another exchange student a slurpee for the first time, we went back in time to watch the wake-boarding competition. We grabbed seats on the lawn again and had just as good of a view. The tricks the wake-boarders were able to do were awesome, and made me want to wake-board very badly.
There were also several wipe-outs.
And after a couple hours the competition was over. It was getting close to sunset and the bands were setting up to begin playing, but after a full day in the sun we were extremely tired, and decided to take a last walk before heading back to campus. It would have been nice to see the fireworks over this view though, I'll admit.
And we did stop by the BMX competition area just to see what was going on. It was free skate for skateboarders that were preparing for a competition the next day and it was interesting to watch them practice for a bit.
But finally we called it a day and packed it in. I headed back to campus to prepare for a long day of classes in the morning.
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