After touching down in Melbourne at the beginning of October, the Melbourne Cup was an eagerly anticipated event.
The buzz in and around the city added to the build-up for this magical occasion. The girls waited nervously for dresses to arrive in the post, whilst the lads went to the barbers for a tidy trim or attempted to iron their shirts.
Finally, the morning of The Cup! Before meeting Kathy and a professional photographer at the iconic Flinders Street Station, a couple of warm up Furphy’s were a must. We had some smashing photos taken of us with views of the Yarra river and the MCG in the background. The girls were looking amazing, outshining us lads.
From here, we took the train to Flemington Racecourse, each carriage filled to the brim with dressed up women and men in suits slurring some racecourse chatter. On arrival Kathy very generously bought us some champagne as we prepped ourselves for the first race.
We all gathered down on the racecourse where we met up with people from the Youlden Parkville Cricket Club. More drinks flowed throughout the day and a fair amount of gambling went on. Everybody seemed to be keeping remarkably quiet on the betting front which probably means they were unsuccessful…
Nonetheless, towards the end of the day the weather perked up and then India, one of my fellow participants, came 1st with Rekindling in the Sport Lived sweepstakes. We then wandered back over to The Park for live music and a boogie. From here we ventured back into city!
A big ‘thank you’ to Kathy and the Sport Lived team for organising our tickets to The Melbourne Cup. We all had an amazing day, definitely a highlight of the trip so far. Bring on Eureka Skydeck!
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