Last Saturday Nate and I attended the annual Alice Spring's Camel Cup. What is the camel cup??? It started as a bet, and has since evolved into an international competition held in Alice Springs every July. They started the events with a parade.... which consisted of two floats. One float was a pirate ship loaded with people dressed like pirates... the second was a ship full of vikings.... the people on the ships shouted, "Go Vikings" or "Go Pirates"... depeding on which ship they were on. The parade lasted about 2 seconds.

We shared donuts, strawberries and a pancake... festival food.

The rest of this post came from http://www.camelcup.com.au/about.html

And it came from a good old Aussie bet!

The first Camel Race was run in 1970 in the dry Todd River Bed as a bet between two mates, Noel Fullerton and Keith Mooney-Smith, and was an added attraction at the Alice Springs Centenary Year Celebrations.

The Camel race proved so popular and hilarious that plans were made by the Lions Clubs to hold the event on an annual basis. The first permanent venue was Traeger Park, but low fences and a grass track were thought to be too dangerous, so in 1975 the event was moved to Arunga Park Speedway, with some success.

Since 1979 the Camel Cup has been held on its own arena at Blatherskite Park, a section of the Central Australian Show Society grounds, with a commentary and judges' tower being erected, for telephone contact to the 'pits' and 'centre arena' to keep the crowd informed.