It's Melbourne cup day (which is a major horse race part of the Spring racing carnival down under). I'm right under the nose of Flemington racecourse. The helicopter are driving me nuts. Embarrassed to say interest has dwindled to zero this year. Probably because I get all of the drunken scraps and heavy traffic near my house when they finish up. did some garden work and I'll go for a bike ride along the river soon. Friends and family are elsewhere. Just me, today.
I hate Spring Racing Carnival and would happily leave the state for two weeks every year to avoid it if I could afford to. This year I could afford a week....so I headed to Adelaide. I was surprised how many people here were going to Melbourne Cup functions today, but I wasn't among them. Home tomorrow & I can pretend the Cup didn't happen.
Isn't it hot as the sun's ass crack in Australia this week? Seems like not a good time to be racing horses
I thought I had read something that had most of Australia at 40°C+ this week off some heat wave pushing south out of India
The extremes will be in the outback regions, which some would call 'desert'. Some capitals will hit over 30s Celsius, which is hot for November but really not that hot
Thanks. I learned something about Australia today. Here all eyes are on the election. Neighborhood getting together for drinks before the returns start coming in. Long/late night predicted.
Might hit that in a few places, but I'm not seeing many cities over 36 today and they are north/central, which is generally hotter . That is slightly overs for this time of year, but not unusual. It was 30 in Adelaide yesterday and will hit that today in Melbourne before the rain arrives. Not extreme for this time of year.
Melbourne Cup Day is a public holiday in Victoria, but not elsewhere. People in other states do follow the race, I saw many folk in Adelaide clearly dressed up for a Cup lunch and numerous places advertising functions. While it is still called 'the race that stops the nation', I don't think that is true any more. I remember a few times in school we would stop to watch it (I grew up in a different state), and it is the only horse race that non-racing people pay any attention to, but it isn't as big in relative terms as it used to be. Horse racing is a MASSIVE money earner in Australia and has a wider following here than in many nations. In my parents & especially grandparents time it had a very broad following - if you wanted to find my grandad you would head out into the garden & listen for the radio with the races on. Now it is a bit less popular, but still widely reported on. Spring is the big time for racing - especially the 3 weeks across the end of October & start of November. Cup day is always the first Tuesday in November, so everything else is scheduled around that. There! More than you ever needed to know about horse racing in Australia.
