{"id":617,"date":"2016-03-11T01:52:28","date_gmt":"2016-03-11T01:52:28","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.adventuretours.com.au\/australia-outback-yarns\/?p=617"},"modified":"2016-05-13T07:31:29","modified_gmt":"2016-05-13T07:31:29","slug":"australias-strangest-sporting-arenas","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.adventuretours.com.au\/australia-outback-yarns\/australias-strangest-sporting-arenas\/","title":{"rendered":"Australia’s strangest sporting arenas"},"content":{"rendered":"

Australians are masters of environmental adaptation. When placed in surrounds harsh, hostile and generally inimical to human habitation, they adjust. Not always in creative, clever or particularly successful ways, it should probably be said. Dogged determination and a wanton oversight have tended to play greater hands than any acute ingenuity (Just look at the introduced critters now running roughshod\u00a0over our\u00a0country\u2019s delicate ecosystem). But when it comes to the important things in life, like, say, playing sport in places totally unsuited for it, Aussies have an\u00a0unparalleled\u00a0aptitude for gazing across\u00a0a desert and declaring: \u2018Bah, who needs grass on a golf course anyway?\u2019<\/p>\n

Here are a few sporting arenas that testify to Australians\u2019 uncanny ability to shrug \u2018It\u2019ll do\u2019 in the face of sport venue adversity.<\/p>\n

Coober Pedy Golf Course<\/h3>\n

The isolated South Australian town of Coober Pedy is far better known as the world\u2019s opal-mining capital than it is a golfing hotspot and the reasons for this are many: outside temperatures so searing\u00a0that most of the population have taken to living underground; one tree’s worth of shade (and it fashioned from scrap iron); zero water hazards; not a scruff of grass as far as the eye can see\u2026 and yet a golf course there is. And it’s the only one in the world to boast reciprocal rights with the official home of golf.<\/p>\n

When Coober Pedy\u2019s Golf Club House was destroyed by fire in 2002, President Kim Kelly was so impressed with the new one built\u00a0that he contacted\u00a0St. Andrews with offer of reciprocal playing rights between their clubs. Bewilderingly, St. Andrews agreed, asking only \u00a0the rights to an opal mine worked into the deal\u2026 and the rest is history: St. Andrews members now enjoy total exemption from the $10 green fees charged to hit off\u00a0on \u2018greens\u2019 that are maintained with motor oil. On the plus side, any opals found by putters about the course are free for the keeping.<\/p>\n

Queenstown\u2019s Gravel Oval<\/h3>\n
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Image c\/o Gary Sauer-Thompson, Flickr<\/p><\/div>\n

Back in 1895, the workers of Queenstown\u2019s copper mine longed for some place they could kick the footy around following a long day\u2019s subterranean labouring. Space wasn\u2019t the problem; there was plenty of that. The 250 cm of rain that deluged the town each year was. Well, that and the sulfuric emissions produced by the local\u00a0copper smelting plant. Both had a habit of killing all the\u00a0grass in the area. Thankfully, someone had an idea. \u2018Doesn\u2019t matter\u2019 it was, \u2018we’ll just make a field from\u00a0gravel and have a kick\u00a0on that\u2019.<\/p>\n

Whilst the copper smelt has long since been closed, locals have preferred to stick at\u00a0playing one of the world\u2019s roughest contact sports on a layer of rocks. It means the ball still bounces on rainy days, they maintain. Plus what better incentive for staying on one\u2019s feet than a body length of gravel rash?<\/p>\n

Unsurprisingly, the Queenstown Crows have reared a few AFL players in their days. You tend to grow up tough when post-game rubdowns mean\u00a0having rocks scoured out of you with steel brushes.<\/p>\n

The Henley-On-Todd Regatta<\/h3>\n
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Image c\/o Alli Polin, Flickr<\/p><\/div>\n

Boat races typically require two things: a boat and a body of water. In 1962, members of the Alice Springs Rotary Club decided one of these things superfluous. And thus was\u00a0the Henley-On-Todd Regatta born.<\/p>\n

Modeled as a parody\u00a0of the stuffy pomp and carry-on of Oxfordshire\u2019s famous Henley-On Thames regatta, the Henley-On-Todd runs (literally) along a dry riverbed in Alice Springs. Entrance is open to all and sundry; the only requisites a vessel (with the bottom cut out of it) and hardy crew willing to hop inside and race around in it. Pirate ships, Viking boats, Navy frigates, canoes and rubber duckies all usually make an appearance, battling it out in the name of fundraising and fun. Not so incredibly, the Henley-On-Todd is believed to be the world\u2019s only dry river regatta. In 1993 it had to be cancelled when some unseasonal rain saw water in the river.<\/p>\n

Shipsterns Bluff<\/h3>\n

Bone fide wackjobs have been risking life and limb on\u00a0crazy waves for decades now, but Shipstern\u2019s Bluff \u2013 an (ostensibly) surfable break along Tassie\u2019s southeast coast \u2013 is regularly counted among the world\u2019s heaviest of heavyweights. For years the wave broke known to, though unridden by, local surfers.<\/p>\n