SEVENTY YEARS young! March 2022.

My annual birthday present is a  ‘golf play and stay’(my choice) compliments of my beloved.  However this year regardless of being a 70th, birthday plans were thwarted by the "good old" weather god.  Not the original rain bomb that affected the south east coast of Queensland and New South Wales but another couple of days of rain and storms on top of ground that was already saturated.  

The plan was to travel up to Elliot Heads, about 2 hours drive north from Gympie and play golf at the Coral Cove club.  This course apart from lining the coast for stunning views from tees, also boasted a course consisting of two par 6 holes so a bit special, in my opinion.

 

 We booked a lovely bnb beside the ocean for 3 days.  A lovely Bali setting in the front yard and it was pet friendly so even Norman could enjoy the little holiday break.  Well, that was as far as all the activity went … it rained morning and night. There were short periods of fine weather but the golf courses were closed because of all the excess water lying around.  Trees had been uprooted, bunkers became ponds, fairways were too wet for any traffic and heavens only knows what would happen to your handicap if you tried to hit a ball in those conditions.  

Flowers compliments of KG and Deb

A lot of relaxing was done and a little bit of drinking.  We had friends over in Burnett Heads so spent time with them.  However an incident that nearly spoiled the occasion, Norman went missing.  Each time we went away from the bnb, the rule, was for the dog to accompany us.  On the last night we were there we went into Bundaberg to one of the Craft Brewery eateries for a meal.  We secured Norman beside the vehicle with water as was the practice every time we left him.  Lo and behold, he was not there when we returned.  Complete disbelief, there was no way he could have escaped and besides he always felt secure around the car cause he knew we'd always go back to the car and he wasn't going to be abandoned.

Anyway we patrolled the streets to see if he was loose in town, rang the police and eventually returned to our accommodation very teary-eyed.  In the morning, the day we were scheduled to go home our hosts suggested we call into the dog pound as it was in the area.  As soon as we pulled up, we heard Norman's bark.  Some meddling do-gooder was the cause of it all.  In retrospect, it was a time when things did not go to plan, but all’s well that ends well.  In future, Norman will be going into a kennel when we go away from home.  Maybe I’ll get to play at Coral Cove at a later date.

Our dragonboat club always celebrates significant birthdays.  Barbie and I qualified and decided  to have a combined party.  Barb is the baby by 3 days, she’s quiet and cute and usually one of the stroke paddlers.  I am part of the powerhouse, won the Whinger Award but we both love paddling.   We probably have about 20 years of paddling between us.

Birthday birds.

Some Dragon friends

Another paddler had her Mum, who turned 91 on the night of our gathering, so she joined in as well.  She was a lovely lady and we learnt she immigrated from the UK 15 years ago, an amazing adventurous person in her latter years.

Barb, Joan and Jean.

Some beautiful bouquets, birthday cake, restaurant dining vouchers and plenty of pizzas.  It was a lovely night.  Thanks paddlers.