Caulfiled Cup and Around the Bay in a Day

I don't know if I've mentioned this before, but Australians, particularly Victorians, particularly Melburnians, are rabid sports fans. Of the 16 AFL (footy) teams across the country, 8 of them are in or around Melbourne. Cricket, footy, and soccer are high on the list but Aussies love any kind of competition. Yesterday, while on an outing to see an exhibit about Pompeii at the Melbourne Museum, we ran across hundreds of people going to the Caulfield Cup (horse race).




You can't see it to well from the picture, but people here treat horse racing as a gala dress-up event. Drunken guys in suits and ladies in these crazy star-trek type hats go and bet on these horses. Aussies love to bet too. I believe i read they have the worst gambling problem of any country in the world. But you might expect that from a bunch of ex-convicts.


Also, around the bay in a day is a 250km bike race. We accidentally stumbled onto some of the festivities while searching for a place for a late lnch after the museum.




Now, we're just praying for it to warm up a bit (still mid-Spring here) before we go on our 3 day holiday to the Great Ocean Road in 3 weeks. we need some beach weather.


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