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Christmas is part of the long
summer school vacation and during December and
January you can be forgiven for thinking that
half of Australia is on holiday. This is when
accommodation is almost always booked out.
Australia's arts festivals attract
culture vultures from all over Australia to see
mainstream and fringe drama, dance, music and
visual arts. The huge Festival of Sydney,
which takes up most of January, is the umbrella
for a number of events from open air concerts,
to street theatre and fireworks. The Adelaide
Arts Festival takes place at the beginning
of March in even-numbered years. In odd-numbered
years, Womadelaide, Adelaide's
outdoor festival of world music and dance, takes
care of February. Melbourne has a Comedy
Festival in April, the world's biggest
Writers' Festival in September
and the fabulous Melbourne International
Festival in October. A couple of festivals
to celebrate Aboriginal arts and culture include
the Stompen Ground Festival,
which is held in Broome in October and the Barunga
Wugularr Sports & Cultural Festival,
held near Katherine in June.
Sporty fun includes Darwin's
Beer Can Regatta in August, when a series
of boat races are held for craft constructed entirely
of beer cans; Alice Spings holds the Henley-on-Todd,
a boat race 'run' on a dry river bed. More mainstream
events include the Sydney to Hobart
yacht race (from Boxing Day); the Australian
Open tennis championship (Melbourne in
January); the Australian Grand Prix
(Melbourne in March); Australian Rules
Football (around the country from March
to September); and the country-stopping Melbourne
Cup on the first Tuesday in November.
Gay festivals include Sydney's
massive, outlandish Gay & Lesbian
Mardi Gras, in February/March, and Melbourne's
January/February Midsumma Festival.
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