Emily in Australia: Melbourne Cup

The roses, the horses, the betting, and the fashion - oh the fashion!! Last Tuesday was a public holiday in Victoria for Melbourne Cup, one of the best well known horse races in Australia. For some it's about punting (betting) on the winning horse - for most of us it's about seeing and being seen.

Preparation for Cup day started a week earlier for me - KM and I had to find fascinators and plan our outfits. These puppies are expensive!! And difficult to keep on your head!! Luckily we found an outlet store where we could pick them up for half off - a big deal considering they start at $100 and can reach upwards of $400! What an industry. Here are a couple pictures from the shopping experience (good for way over an hour of fun) - me with a selection of fascinators we had to pick through, and me again with the second choice one that didn't make the cut:

Cup day itself was a bit dreary - grey and cool and drizzly. I was also not feeling well at all which was very depressing. I had flown in late the night before from Cairns (update on that still to come!) and think I had some kind of food poisoning...I couldn't eat or drink anything all day which really sucked because KM had packed a fantastic picnic and the only thing more fashionable than a good hat is to carry around bottles of champagne all day. All in all it was super fun though, and we had some added excitement when D and KM2 picked the first and second place horses for the main cup race and it had to go to a photo finish. (The one horse I bet on didn't come close to placing....but the jockey was wearing a fantastic neon orange shirt so I could tell where it was all the time at least!) This is one day where pictures really do speak louder than words, so I'll stop here and show you what the day was like!