Last weekend we celebrated the Campbelltown Ratha Yatra for 2009. Campbelltown is a city 50 kilometers from Sydney, Australia. Every year the city of Campbelltown celebrates a community festival called the Fisher’s Ghost Festival, thousands of people line the festival route which stretches down the main street for more than 1.6 kilometers.

Devotees have been participating in the festival for around four years. One year the Ratha Yarta cart won an award for the best entrant. Thousands of people get to see the the deity form of Jagannatha, Baladeva and Subhadra, as well as Srila Prabhupada. They also get to hear the Mahamantra as the devotees chant and dance all the way along the parade route.

This is the cart waiting for our turn to join into the parade. Staff from the State Emergency Services co-ordinate the day and they told us when we should be ready to take our turn.

Srila Prabhupada wore a special Jagannatha hat to keep the sun off. The sun was so got I got a sunburned face.

Whilst we waited we practiced our sweeping

And dancing

We were having a great time

And we did a lot of chanting

We got the ropes in our hands and we were ready to go

Here come the Hare Krishna’s

Dancing and singing

We pulled our cart up two hills along the parade route

The locals really enjoyed seeing us

And we enjoyed being there