Dunkeld Country Cup

A few weekends ago, we went to the Dunkeld Country Cup horse races. It was less crowded than the Tatts Cox Plate we went to back in October, and a little more laid back in that we could get right up to the fence and see the horses run right by. Thanks to Alena for loaning me her fun hat/fascinator!

Nigel and Zack placing bets.

We went with our friends Adam and Emily (who had Colorado friends visiting), Nigel and Kristy, and Todd and Alena. Everyone brought food, so we had a nice picnic to enjoy between races. Zack and I would usually place $5 bets on each race. As usual, we won some and lost some-nothing too major in either direction.

Alena organized us getting an "umbrella package," so we had a table and seats reserved for us to use all day. It was nice to have a place to set our stuff and relax and eat.

Depending on the length of the race, sometimes they started right in front of the audience. In this particular one, a horse got pretty rowdy in the starting gate and the jockey fell off and hurt her wrist. She and the horse had to drop out of the race.

It was a beautiful Saturday in a very pretty setting, and we had a great time at this country race. Along with Todd and Alena, we spent the night in the nearby Grampians National Park, camping and then rock climbing the next day. But I'll leave that for my next post!

Nigel, Kristy, Scott, Cierra, Emily, Adam, Alena, Todd, me, and Zack

Melbourne Cup Recap

Well, we're back from the Northern Territory. It was awesome, and I will have lots of blog posts to come about seeing crocodiles, swimming under waterfalls, hiking and camping and canoeing, etc. In the meanwhile, I'm just trying to catch up on laundry, e-mails, bills, grocery shopping...not to mention narrowing down the 900 pictures we took over the long weekend!

While I work on getting up posts about our trip, I'll leave you with a short one about the Melbourne Cup, which was held on Tuesday. That meant that department stores like Myer and David Jones have been filled with displays like this for several weeks. It's a holiday that is just as much about the fashion as it is about the horse racing. Tuesday is a public holiday in Melbourne, and I'm guessing that a lot of people do what we did and make a long weekend out of it.

We were actually able to catch the race at a pub outside of Litchfield National Park. There were a couple of older ladies there dressed up with fascinators, but most people looked like locals on a late lunch break or tourists like us. I enjoyed a barramundi burger, chips (fries), and a mango-passionfruit flavored cider while barracking for my favorite horse (so Australian!).

My $3 bet was basically worthless. Americain (a horse we saw at the Tatts Cox Plate last year) was favored to win but didn't even place. Unexpectedly, Green Moon took first place. Zack had placed a $5 bet on Green Moon at this year's Tatts Cox Plate, but he didn't place at that race. I guess the horse was saving up his energy to win the Melbourne Cup. And I guess we're not good at this betting thing!






Anyway, lots more to come about our trip. And an interesting side note about the US election...Australia had full coverage of the results all afternoon on one of its main television channels. How many of you Americans could even name Australia's Prime Minister? It's interesting how much other countries know and care about US politics (and music, and movies, and basically everything).