Crazy

Melbourne Cup Day: "The Race That Stops A Nation" is the famous saying about this race...
My morning started early and I spotted my crazy blip early too, while walking with Milo a Cormorant was acting quite crazy and taking quite an aggressive stand against Milo who was just quietly watching, the cormorant spread his wings and strutted his stuff, I reached for my camera! Click! NO MEMORY CARD!! Well we all do it once, this is my once! I will move on from that Crazy start...(disappointed)

I later met my friend at the Marina for our usual catch up, this time before she heads off for Bali next week, both of us totally forgetting the Melbourne cup was on this morning.
A public holiday in the Eastern States, not so for the ones who live in the West.
From the image above at The Boat, the local pub, one would have thought it was a Sunday Session! It was packed! Crazy!! There must have been a lot of sickies thrown today or someone had very kind understanding bosses that allowed them this day off, or maybe they could have booked a day off whatever?
It was still crazy also at the other end of the Marina the "Indi Brewery" was just as Crazy with parties of people all wearing their big hats and dressed to the nines! Some looking as if they had just flown in after attending The Melbourne Cup...

History from Wikipedia:
The Race That Stops A Nation, first began in 1861, no one envisaged the Cup would last centuries and become a significant part of Australian social sporting Culture.
The first race was watched by 4000 people.
By 1880 there would be 100.000 people to make the journey to Flemington to attend the Cup, as Melbourne's population was only 290.000 at the time, this attendance was quite phenomenal.
At the time of the first cup the State if Victoria was experiencing the gold rush with people flocking from far and wide in the hope of finding gold, the lucky ones who did find gold and became rich enjoyed the splurge at Flemington.
Today The Melbourne Cup is the richest handicap race held in Australia and the prize money and trophies make it among the richest horse races in the world.

Today's winner was a Gai Waterhouse horse, her first Melbourne Cup win with Fiorente ridden by Damien Oliver.

We are not a betting family, by any stretch, and my mother is the most frugal of mothers, but I can BET that mum would have had a bet on this race today! I will phone her later to find out!