Phoenix & Eric's Australian Adventure

We made it 30 years, our wedding anniversary so having a quiet day before going out for a meal with some of our friends tonight.

In the afternoon yesterday Elisa got a phone call about her microlight flight that was booked for Tuesday, as it was going to be strong winds (50kM) would she swap from Tuesday to today. So 9am we are on our way to the Exmouth airfield for her 90 minute flight.

After her safety brief into her flight suit, helmet on and into the microlight. The flight would take her on both sides of the point where she saw dugongs, whale sharks, eagle rays, humpbacks and several other things including taking a picture of our caravan.

This weekend was the Wholesalers Carnival sponsored by all the locals in Exmouth. The team consisted of me skipper, Elisa third, Russ our blow in from Halls Head second and John from our club as lead.

There were to be three games of fourteen ends per day. We won the first game and then lost the next two on the Saturday so in good spirits we arrived for the Sunday losing the first game by ONE point and losing the second and winning the final game, so 2 wins out of 6.

Today is the yearly challenge between the players on the two caravan parks. The game was played by 72 players as a triples competition. All points scored being added up to give the final score, at the start of the day Ningaloo where the holders from last year and after the count are still the holders this year, the RAC where we are need to lift our game for next year.

Today has been run for the last thirteen years by one of the Exmouth Bowling Club members (Terry) who lost his wife. This now remembers all players who have played at Exmouth over the thirteen years from all clubs. There are about fortyeight members on the list.

Today was BYO lunch and Terry provided a sausage sizzle at the end of the day.

We only won one game out of the three so no prize money for us.

There is bowls this afternoon, depending on how many turn up and we end up playing two games of pairs. At the end when they come to hand out the money to the winners Elisa came in second place and i came in first. So we won $20 and $25 respectively.

Today we are cleaning the van and Elisa is doing some shopping as we apparently have to feed ourselves for the next few days.

This weekend is the Celebrations / IGA Carnival. There are twenty-two teams of four players taking part this year. There are three games of fourteen ends on the Saturday after which the top twelve will play in section one and the other ten will play in section two on the Sunday. Having played our three games we won one so are in section two on Sunday. The lunch was soup, a cold salad, afternoon tea was cakes and tea was Sunday Roast.

Day two and we loose our first two games so put Trina in as skipper and Elisa as Third and i fall back to second to give them some experience in different positions and we managed to win. The lunch was soup, a cold salad, afternoon tea was cakes, pies and sausage rolls and pizza, prawns and chips and dip for a light tea.

The weather was around 25 degrees for both days.

Having had a lie in until 8AM to make up for not sleeping have put the awning back up while Elisa has made breakfast. Have relaxed before heading to the bowls club for a few ends rollup ready for tomorrows competition. The rest of our team has just arrived at the caravan site so just been and informed them they need to be at bowls club for 9AM for a 9:30 start. Back to the caravan for tea and to sit and write up the last 3 days blog.

Will let you know how we get on.

A walk along the front before setting off at 10 AM for a 180kM drive to Exmouth. The road upto Exmouth has been sorted out after Cyclone Norrel went through in March. You can see rubbish on the fences along the side of the road where the flood waters had been. There are a lot of posts which originally had signs on them along the side of the road. There are no signs telling us which way Exmouth is, so a good job there is only one road and we have been before.

While travelling we received a text from Rhina with a picture of Pheonix basking in the sun at the top of the drive just to let us know she is happy and ok.

Arrived at RAC Exmouth and managed to get on site within 10 Minutes of getting there. Have setup having to borrow a hammer drill from reception to be able to get the tent pegs into the ground. Just been and had a beer with Bill and Leonie at their caravan before going back for tea.

Being very tired we retired to ed early only to be kept a wake by the high winds to whiich we ended up at 1:30AM going out and taking down the awning. Back to bed.