Melbourne Cup Day

Yesterday was apparently a big deal in the city of Melbourne and Australia in general. So in Munda, we used it as an excuse to go on a boat out to a beautiful little island that has a tv and spend the afternoon having a few beers. We took part in a sweepstake and Alex (med student) actually won $600 (£60) having put in $50. He was a little smug for the rest of the afternoon!

My horse, Maluckyday, came 2^nd so I was pretty pleased too.

When we were starting to gather at the boat to head back to Munda, we suddenly realised that one of the Australian guys (on a dive holiday) had been drinking whisky and coke all afternoon. Unfortunately this meant that he thought it was hilarious to jump off the boat as it was going along at a fairly good speed............twice! He was not a popular man by the end of the trip, and if he’d done it closer to the town we were considering leaving him to swim home.

A bit later as we were all sitting on the shore, watching the sunset, we suddenly saw the same guy dive tackling a Japanese tourist into the water, camera, phone and all. Unfortunately, the Japanese group didn’t think that it was hilarious at all because it turns out they were there to visit where their fathers and grandfathers had died in the fighting. The (now wet) camera had photos on it of the site where his grandfather had died. Luckily an international incident was averted by the diving instructor who took the memory card and managed to save the photos onto a disk via a computer. The idiot and his similarly inebriated friend were evicted from the lodge to a nearby guesthouse.

It was quite amusing to watch it all play out though. Australians!

Note: In fairness to their fellow countrymen, the other 6 Australians in the group were perfectly well behaved and great fun. It was just interesting to see some live down to their stereotype, as I have seen many English yobs do in foreign climes.