When railways and roads arrived, the camels weren't useful any more, but they survived very happily in Australia's central desert.
The other strange race at Alice Springs is the Henley-on-Todd Regatta. The name comes from a famous boat race at Henley-on-Thames in England. But there's one big difference. There's always water in the Thames - but the Todd River in Alice Springs is nearly always dry. They use boat without a bottom and teams of people run along the river bed, carrying their boats with them. If there's a lot of rain, the race doesn't take place because there's too much water in the river