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.

One of my favorite places I’ve found in Melbourne is the Carlton Gardens. Luckily, they’re also very close to where I live. Within the gardens is the Melbourne Museum. The museum is something of a science museum, which aren’t my favorite, but it’s still informative and a good museum. I love the architecture of building, it’s got a very unique and new feel to it. In the picture below you can see the part that towers out into the sky, within this section is an actual mini forest representative of local forests.

Around the gardens are nice paths for running and relaxing. It’s nice to have a little green grass — most of Melbourne, and Victoria (the state) are very brown and dry from the drought of the past 12 years.

I decided to swing by St. Patrick’s Cathedral the other day while I was near the museum. It’s nice, not the largest cathedral I’ve ever seen — not exactly La Sagrada Familia — but it’s tastefully done and quite peaceful.