Who knew you weren't supposed to eat meat on Good Friday? The lovely family we stayed with last night in Wagga put on a famous feast of salmon, prawns and other treats. Only thing is I don't eat seafood! So after our 500km drive I picked away at cheese & biscuits, and guzzled a few glasses of fine Margaret River shiraz to drown my sorrows. A wonderful evening - family styles.
Cameron the Man Of The House had worded us up about some desert like course down the road that has "sand scrape" greens (literally sand that's oiled every so often to keep it from blowing away). Too good an opportunity to miss. Polo shirts were swapped for t-shirts; caps flipped backwards; and insect repellant should have been applied (it wasn't). You'd have to see this place to believe it. We played in a 5 ball with Cameron & his twin sons, Tom & Drew. They smoked us in the haggle (their ambrose score versus the worst Michael or I could muster on each hole). Absolutely smoked us. Local knowledge. Banter as fierce as a hungry sabre tooth tiger kept us on our toes - even the 12 year old twins were sleding us! Little tykes.
This was golf as we will probably never experience it again. Clay fairways, sand scrape greens and plagues of locusts. Royal Canberra tomorrow will probably be more of the same. Or not.
Below is a short vid of The Coolamon Experience that we've put together. There's a touching wee story behind the "Coolamon Mens' Shed" sign you'll see. This be rural country, and dry rural country at that. When it's in drought, depression is rife among farmers, and suicide isn't uncommon. So a few of the local farmers got together to teach the skills they have - usually a trade, like woodwork - to young chaps twiddling their thumbs in drought ridden times, to keep 'em off the farms and interested in something. It might only be once a month or so, but these lads at least have a hobby to get their teeth into. Touching, I thought.
JP
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Chisholm Park
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