Down the coast again, and again

I've been down to the south coast for 3 weekends in a row.  Twice to go diving with Matt, and once to go to the Moruya races with Karyn.  And then last weekend we went up to Sydney to go to the races at Warwick Farm.  I'm actually glad to have this weekend off.

Here are a few photos from the various weekends.

 Stake Knife running 3rd at Moruya.

 The jockey (Kayla Nisbet) was pleased with the result. Despite coming back with a face covered in mud. She seems to be always smiling.

 We stayed overnight at a place in Bateman's Bay overlooking the water.

 Our room.

 Having a glass of champagne and enjoying the view.

 The view from the room looking out to the East.

 I went for a walk after dinner and captured this view of the bridge over the Clyde river.  The section in the middle lifts up to let sailboats through.

 A moray eel that Matt and I saw on a dive at Broulee.

 Some colourful sponges.

 A large blue grouper that kept his eye on us.

 This is the beach at Broulee where we went diving.  There was a very strong rip just off the rocks that quickly sucked us out into the deeper water.  Just as we were getting dragged out in the strong current I remembered that I hadn't locked the car doors.

 Karyn and I on a bus trip to Warwick Farm with the Women In Racing crowd.  I reckon Karyn had a champagne glass glued onto her hand for the whole trip.

 We were invited by the racecourse manager to view the start of a race from the starter's position.  The next three show the horses jumping from the barriers.

Two in a row

This week we went to Moruya for its Melbourne Cup Day races.

This time Diamond Jay was in the second race.  It’s a nice change from normal where we seem to be always in the last race.  For me, that means that I get the chance to take better pictures because there will be more light around.  At Bombala a fortnight ago I was battling rain and dark clouds that made taking a high-speed photo difficult.

We decided to get there early because the racing club wouldn’t allow us to book a table in the Members’ Area, and we thought that if the weather was awful we wouldn’t want to be stuck outside.  So we got there early enough to get the best table near the windows.

It seemed to drizzle the whole way to Moruya, which was worrying.  But when we arrived the rain stopped.  The sun even came out after a while and there was even a large spectator turn-out.

It turned out to be a great day, with Diamond Jay winning by 2 lengths.

The crowd was deafened by the screams of delight from Karyn and Penny who then raced down to give DJ a good pat.

Karyn, as usual, gave a speech at the trophy presentation.  Unlike last time when the crowd ran away as she spoke, this time they hung around.

A final pose for the photographer… As usual, we couldn’t get the trophy away from Penny for the rest of the day.

A win at Moruya

We went to the races at Moruya (on the NSW South Coast) the other day.  We decided to make it an all-day trip because Moruya is about 2 1/2 hours away.

We had Kevin Sweeney riding him, which was good; we have a lot of faith in him.  We don't have to give him riding instructions because we can leave it to him to find his way between or around the opposition, and he knows better than us how the other jockeys are likely to perform on the day.

Diamond Jay was last for most of the race, and then when they reached the straight, she just powered past the opposition.  It always makes the trip home more enjoyable with a trophy in your hand.

The downside of a win is the amount of time Karyn likes to spend celebrating in the bar afterwards.

Everyone else had left until it was just us, the bartender, and the police wondering why there were still people at the track.