One of the largest gay and lesbian parties in the Southern Hemisphere is about to take over the streets of Sydney.
The annual 37th Mardi Gras Parade is one of the cities most loved events, and for the third year running, Australia's first nations float will be the first to fly the rainbow flag.
The parade is made up of 140 floats and more than 10,000 people in breath-taking costumes are set to strut the streets of Sydney.
Leading the party will be a giant rainbow serpent, a spectacular vision made reality by Indigenous drag queen, Destiny haz Arrived.
Destiny says the parade will be a combination of the traditional and the contemporary.
"So the plan is to have the serpent following me and have traditional dancers on the outside to dance the serpent up (the street) so that way we're incorporating the rainbow, the serpent, the dreamtime.
"There's traditional there and there's contemporary as well."
Destiny says her message is for Indigenous participants is to understand the symbolism of their float.
"It means acknowledgement, respect, inclusion and also respecting our ancestry and acknowledgment of our people."
This year's theme is kaleidoscope an image symbolic of all shades of the rainbow.
Mardis Gras co-chair Siri Kommedahl says the theme reflects the gay, bisexual, transgendered, queer and intersex (LGBTQI) culture.
"We're not just the colours of the rainbow, we're all those infinite shades in between and together we make that beautiful luminescent diamond."
