Gay and Lesbian Mardi Gras

It is one of the biggest events of the year in Sydney and we felt we couldn’t give it a miss so on Saturday night we boarded a bus and set off for the Gay and Lesbian Mardi Gras. With a well over 100 floats, about 10,000 performers and watched by over 150,000 people the event is massive – so massive in fact that it is almost impossible to see anything unless you are 6’6” or can find a convenient window or ladder! At this point the entrepreneurial spirit of Sydneysiders comes to the fore and street vendors selling plastic stools for $10 each were making a fortune. Against my better judgement Sandra insisted on buying a stool – but she reckons it was 10 bucks well spent and I must reluctantly agree.

With Sandra on her stool and me on tip-toes below we watched the parade. Colour (mainly pink) and noise dominated as every conceivable gay and lesbian group and organisation cavorted past – from Gay And Lesbian Advice (Gala for short – I can think of a rugby team in the Scottish Borders which might wince at that) to Gay Firefighters, Police, Doctors and Nurses, Surf Life Savers - the latter were particularly good, and so on. My particular favourite, given our current plans, was a group called “GayCampingNSW” (New South Wales) whose wonderful strapline was “Camp as a Row of Tents”

However I am glad that we are leaving Sydney soon, hopefully before the retaliatory Muslim jihad is unleashed – I can think of no other response after a 12 foot effigy of Osama bin Laden was paraded through the streets by gays and lesbians. It rather puts a few cartoons into the shade in terms of insults – allegedly of course. Perhaps the Tsunami about to be unleashed upon Australia following the Chilean earthquake is an immediate divine response to such blasphemy!

One particularly disconcerting feature of the evening was the number of young, beautiful women in various stages of undress that were on display, not just in the parade, but everywhere you looked. Normally this would not have been a problem for me but the knowledge that about 50% were actually men restrained some of my wilder fantasies! However, later that evening, I did find a woman - and have a photograph to prove it.

There is only so much one can take of "Dykes on Bikes" (honestly - they led the parade and one wouldn't have wanted to meet them in a dark alley - mind you, despite the looks, they are probably harmless social workers when out of their leathers) that after a couple of hours Sandra ditched her $10 investment and we headed for home. Taking back roads to avoid the crowds we inadvertently found ourselves back at the beginning of the parade route and were amazed to find there were still floats waiting to start out – several hours after the first ones left. It was at this stage I experienced an amazing co-incidence. I had lost sight of Sandra in the crowds and started casting around to find her. There I was in a city 12,000 miles from home, a city of 4 million people - a fair number of whom were milling around me in the streets, when out of the crowd came what seemed to be a familiar face. I looked at her and I obviously had that “Yes it looks like her but … no it couldn’t possibly be” look on my face – as did the person coming towards me. It turned out to be Ann Lawrie who worked in the same office as me in Edinburgh who was across in Australia for a holiday – small world!

Sandra and I ended the evening in a Vietnamese restaurant on Darling Street just a few minutes from home – a really good meal and another bottle of red.

Below are a few photos to give a flavour of the event.

We are thinking of another short camping trip tomorrow (Monday) so may be out of internet access for a few days.

PS The tsunami was a bit of a damp squib. All the beaches on the east coast were closed and people told to keep away. Consequently crowds flocked to the beaches to be disappointed when notthing happened.