SUNDAY 7 JUNE     EMERALD

I was wide awake and up at 7am, due to the “environmental” noise around us. Not happy about it, either. This would have to rank as just about the poorest value $30 a night we’d ever spent!

The sky was clear and blue and the day warmed up quickly.

Whilst John slumbered on, influenced by his late night, I hand washed a couple of T shirts, at the laundry, and also the kitchen floor mat. When John surfaced, he declared he wanted his jeans washed. They obviously had not been dirty enough yesterday, when I did the machine washing! I soaked those in the bucket.

John wanted to be at the Bowls Club by 1pm, for a 1.30 start. Then, we sat around there, outside, staring at the grass, until things got organized at about 2pm. John played in a pairs game, with other serious bowlers, and enjoyed himself.

I played as skip against another visitor, a lady from near Cairns who, we discovered, had family living near us, at home. For leads, they paired us with two local “ladies”, who had little idea of bowls, and little interest in gaining more. They were already well inebriated before we started. They spent the game sinking vodka cruisers, smoking incessantly, and generally holding up the game whenever they spotted a male they could drape themselves all over. The other skip told them off a couple of times, which made no difference at all. Unfortunately, visitors to other clubs can all too often finish up teamed with those none of the local club members want to play with. I eventually won, narrowly, which really meant that my partner was slightly less of a handicap than my opponent’s.

If going through those kinds of ordeals was what it took for me to get to go bushwalking, then maybe I would give up the walking!

The afternoon was slightly redeemed when a draw of the winning scorecards was done and I won a $25 meat voucher, for a local butcher. John was sympathetic about my experience – the entire club had seen and heard the spectacle on our rink!

A decision was made that we would try to extend our stay here by another day. Then, after the Monday holiday, we could go to the butcher to redeem my prize, get meat and other shopping, have a roast dinner, and get an early start the next day, for what would be a long stage.

I made corn and zucchini fritters for tea, with corn cobs and a tomato-avocado-onion salsa. John did not comment on the vegetarian offering, but I observed that he ate a heap of the fritters.