SUNDAY 7 FEBRUARY     EVANS HEAD

After an early breakfast, John went to bowls at Broadwater, to a singles event. This is unusual because most games are for teams of multiple players. It was a morning event.

I finished a letter to friend T. Walked up to the Post Office to the central mail box, to send this,  along with postcards to the offspring. I really wanted to get these away, but found the mail was not collected until 5pm Monday, anyway! Still, the walk was exercise.

John came back exultant – he’d won the competition and collected a $20 prize. He said it was strong competition, too.

After lunch, we cycled across the river bridge and around to the other break wall, on good bike paths. The river looked high. There were people swimming in it, and many were fishing closer to the break wall and catching decent bream there. The recent storms had done some damage to the top of the break wall, towards its end, where the waves had been breaking over it.

Rode back over the bridge and continued out the Broadwater road, through low coastal type scrub. Took the Salty Lagoon walking track, on the bikes. It was very narrow and we were hitting bushes quite a bit. Came to some places where there was foot deep water across the track, and we rode through these deep puddles. Then the water over the track became knee deep and we had to walk, trying to find dry patches for our feet. The track turned into a creek – it was actually flowing! We reached the Salty Lagoon, which we found was a pretty ordinary looking swamp behind big coastal dunes. Apparently, when the lagoon entrance is broached, the prawn fishing is excellent here. I bet there would be lots of local people taking advantage of that.

Retraced the way back to town. We had a head wind, so it was less pleasant riding, and we got rained on as well. It is good to be back on the bikes again, though I was a bit sore after the ride! My bike speedo has stopped working – maybe it needs a new battery? We rode 17.2kms today, according to John’s.

Tea was soup, cold pork, steamed vegies, followed by rock melon.

There was much rain through the night. I am sick of rain!