A day of extremes

This weekend Karyn and I went down to the south coast of NSW.  Mainly, we went there to see two of our horses run at Bega, but we decided to spend the night there and visit the coastal town of Eden as well.

We didn't have much luck with the horses - Stake Knife ran second and Diamond Jay ran eighth.  But it was a nice day at the races anyway, and we had a bit of luck with the betting.

After the races on Sunday, we stayed overnight at Merimbula (about 30 minutes drive away).  We stayed at a really nice place opposite the golf course, and decided to go to the golf club for dinner.  The food was nice, but unfortunately there was a jazz festival on, and they decided to torture us all evening with jazz.  I hesitate to call it music. If only the musicians would all play the same tune at the same time!

On Monday morning we drove to Eden, about another half hour south of Merimbula.  Unfortunately it was cold, cloudy, with a fine drizzle.  We had breakfast there and had a quick look around, but it's the sort of place you need to experience on a nice sunny morning.

We headed back to Canberra, and when we climbed back up to the Southern Highlands we came across a nice little fire.  Either someone was burning off some grass, or there was a very productive fire-bug in action.  All the following photos were taken from the same spot using my big zoom lens.

Somehow it was amusing to see one lone person with a backpack fire-extinguisher - just in case the fire got out of control.

I was glad I had my 18-270mm zoom lens on me.

Big Win at Bega

On Sunday we drove to Bega on the southern coast of NSW to see our new horse "Diamond Jay"  race.

Whilst being optimistic about her, we weren't sure about her real competitiveness.  In her last race, despite coming 3rd, she was also 11 lengths behind the leader.  You always hope that there was a reason for this, not just a lack of speed.

Anyway, we made the 3 hour drive there with some friends, stopping at Cooma on the way for coffee and then a lookout over the Bega valley.

Here's the view from the lookout.

Canberra is in the Southern Highlands of NSW, so we're about 600m above sea level.  So, being Autumn, it was about 8 degrees C.   As we descended to sea level, the temperature rose to about 21 degrees, so we had a relatively warm day ahead, windy though it was.

Karyn gave her usual pep-talk to the horse.  He must be getting used to her now.  Last time he bit her 3 times.

And of course the best horse won on the day....

Here's Penny and Karyn holding the trophy in the Committee Room.  There, we watched the race replay about a dozen times.

Notice how tightly Penny is holding the trophy.  She kept it hugged to her chest for the rest of the afternoon and evening.  We're wondering if we'll ever see it again.