Tuesday, November 06, 2012

Melbourne Cup, 2012

I went to a 'paint out' with a local art group this morning but instead of the usual 10-15 participants only one other person was there. Ah, the Melbourne Cup!

It reminded me of my first experience of Australia on the first Tuesday in November. I was in Sydney city and wondered why the streets were suddenly so bare. Could there have been a national emergency? Then I discovered that Australia grinds to a halt at 3pm once a year for a horse race. Today an outsider won the race so there was a good payout and no doubt its backers will be partying all night.

On the way to victory

2 comments:

Anonymous said...

It sounds like the Grand National; I'm not a fan of horse racing but my husband watches it when he isn't busy on the farm.

CJ x

Elizabeth said...

Yes, probably just like the Grand National. I did watch the Melbourne Cup eventually, although I would have missed it completely if the radio commentators had not talked about it so much.