TUESDAY 28 DECEMBER HOBART
We were up early and left Hobart at 7.15. While we were still at White Beach, John had committed us to play in the Nubeena Bowls Club “cray” bowls day – on this day. They were trying to drum up numbers to ensure a good turnout and “leaned” on him to come back for it.
The weather was bleak looking as we left.
When we were crossing the Tasman Bridge, could see the super maxi yacht “Mari Cha 111” coming up the river towards Hobart – a huge yacht. She was just coming up to finish the fastest ever Sydney-Hobart crossing – well under two days. Because she is a new class of yacht, she was sailing the event by special invitation and was not officially eligible for placings. It was being estimated on the radio news that the actual first place getter would finish in another couple of hours. It would have been great to be able to go to the Docks and see the winner finish, and earlier I had hoped to do so. But it became obvious yesterday that it was going to be a fast race, and that I would miss out, because of the bowls.
We went through a number a squalls of rain on the way to Nubeena, and we were having thoughts of going all that way for nothing. However, it was a bit clearer there, though cool.
It turned out to be a 10am start, not 9am as John had thought, so we could have left later!
Club officials had teamed us up with the absolute klutz of the club – who no-one ever wanted to play with, even on social days, let alone when there were prizes attached! Not a nice way to treat visitors who had gone out of their way to attend! The klutz’s wife made up the four – she was a better player. John made him lead, and me play second, because his greatest talent lay in taking out friendly bowls! So it was not a team that was going to take home any crayfish, from the outset. It was pretty obviously deliberately done by the organizers, and not a random draw.
We lost the first game, drew the second, and won the third, so we maybe did a little better than expected. It cost us $24 to enter (plus our fuel costs to get there) and we got morning and afternoon teas provided, plus a lunch of cold meats, salad, fruit salad and icecream, so there was some return for the outlay.
I think John was really disappointed by the team formation and did not have the enjoyable day he had expected. I have certainly had better days!
It was about 7pm when we got back to Hobart. Drove 238kms.
We had a light tea – ham and salad.
Early night – we were both tired.
