The Moomba Festival is a huge festival kind-of carnival in Melbourne every year. It’s dubbed a “Water Festival”, and surrounds the Yarra River which runs through the middle of the city. Melbourne has been in a drought for 12 years (though it’s rained the past few days…), and they take their water conservation quite seriously. Most of the would-be grass is dead and not allowed water. The festival had plenty of stands for education on water usage and water paths. Water is something I can take relatively for granted at home, it’s amazing how different that is here.

The festival was a good time, there were guys wake boarding from riding a winch, and all sorts of rides. The highlight for me however was the “Birdman Rally” — a fundraising event where the participants attempt to make a flying contraption and test it off of a platform in the middle of the river. Often times this contraption involved little more than a cape, and was very entertaining. We saw fireworks one night too, they were pretty awesome because they were shot off from the middle of the river.