Darwin Beer Can Regatta

The Darwin Beer Can Regatta is an event which has been held annually since 1974 in Darwin, Northern Territory, Australia at Mindil Beach. Participants create boats using empty beer cans, soda cans, soft drink bottle and milk cartons. The vessels are not tested for seaworthiness, prior to water events, and those that fall apart are part of the day's entertainment. A great many sundry events go along with the regatta, including concerts, a thong-throwing contest and the "Henley-on-Mindil" competition (named after the Henley-on-Todd Regatta), where participants run their "boats" around like Flintstones cars.

The 1st Beer Can Regatta was the brainchild of Lutz Frankenfeld and Paul Rice-Chapman, both of whom were members of the Darwin Regional Tourism Promotion Aassociation. At the time, Paul had a deal with Swan Breweries to stage a water festival of somesort, and was developing the idea of building rafts out of empty beer cans. Lutz took this idea a step further and added an outboard motor to the vessel, and things grew from there.

The Beer Can Regatta is now managed by the Darwin Lions Beer Can Regatta Association Inc, which is essentially a partnership of the three Lions Clubs of the Darwin region, to promote tourism in the Northern Territory, raise funds for charitable purposes, and promote Lionism.

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The Human Slingshot - Video

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Urine Soaked Boiled Eggs - The Latest Delicacy

As spring sets in, a strange but familiar smell permeates the air in Dongyang City of China’s Zhejiang Province, as locals begin to eat the seasonal “virgin egg.” It’s the smell of urine, because “virgin eggs” are actually eggs boiled in the urine of virgin boys. The local word is Tongzi Dan which translates to “boy egg”. This bizarre street eat, though appalling to an outsider, has been a standard street fare in Dongyang for hundreds of years.

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Sheep Occupy Madrid Street To Protest Grazing Laws

Spanish shepherds led flocks of sheep through the streets of downtown Madrid on Sunday in defense of ancient grazing, migration and droving rights threatened by urban sprawl and man-made frontiers. Jesus Garzón, president of a shepherds council, said about 5,000 sheep and 60 head of cattle crossed the city to exercise the right to droving routes that existed before Madrid grew from a rural hamlet to the great capital it is today.

Shepherds have a right to use 78,000 miles of paths for seasonal livestock migrations from cool highland pastures in summer to warmer grazing in winter. The movement is called transhumance and in Spain it involves around a million animals, mostly sheep and cattle. Some paths have been used annually for more than 800 years, and modern-day Madrid is in the way of two north-south routes. The Puerta del Sol - a thronging plaza that is Spain's equivalent of New York City's Times Square - now straddles one of the routes.

For the past 18 years, shepherds have halted traffic in autumn to assert their rights to cross the city.

Pictures from previous protests

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The XIII Century Preserved Castle In Ukraine

Architectural Museum-Reserve “Olessky castle”, a division of the Lviv Art Gallery – a unique treasure where collected more than five hundred works of painting, sculptures, decorative art of western Ukrainian lands X-XVIII cc. Most of them are exhibited here for the first time. Guide tells of artistic treasures of the museum, the castle itself – the restored monument of ancient architecture.

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