Well 2021 was still in the grips of the Covid Epidemic and we were still restricted in where we could travel. Overseas was still a no go as well as the Eastern States so any holidays had to be within WA.
Bruce is getting into growing tulips, he isn’t having much success but at least he is trying. Rosie has taken up art projects and is surrounding the house with her creations.
Charles turned 66 in September and Rosie won the Nett in the Women’s Golf Championship.
In November, we went on a holiday, with Jim and Anne, around the Southern Coast of WA. We can travel anywhere Australia now but, because of Covid, we cannot leave the country yet with out a lot of difficulty. We first went to Albany first to play golf and to visit Phillip and Kathleen. Kathleen still isn’t well, so we had to make sure none of us had any coughs of flu before we could join them for lunch.
We played the competition on one day in Albany and Bruce did quite well coming third. Albany Golf course is brilliant, with many undulations on the fairways that seem to suit Bruce’s game, it doesn’t suit anyone else though. Wouldn’t want to play here when the wind is really blowing. A couple of the short par 3’s have a horrible run off on the left down the road. We always seem to get caught in this trap.
After Albany, we went to Esperance for a few days to play golf and look around. Esperance has the most pristine beaches in the world and hardly anyone gets to see them. They are very busy now that we are all stuck in Australia, many Eastern States tourists are doing the drive across the Nullarbor and then doing the southern loop that we are doing.
We also visited Pink Lake, which was very pink once, but now it has changed and just looks like a salt lake.
Esperance has two golf courses, Esperance Golf Course and Pink Lake golf course. We played them both before deciding which one we wanted to play a second time.
Esperance has a lot of water which you need to negotiate and also has some huge carries to be able to make the fairways. The first time Jim and Bruce didn’t make the fairway on many occasions, but we still liked the course. Pink Lake is very hilly and not in the same conditions as Esperance. We enjoyed our game, but there was no contest when deciding which one to play again.
We went back to Esperance and played in their competition. This is when we found out that fairway was defined by some white pegs, not the cut surface, hence Jim and Bruce could make the fairway and get a preferred lie, even though we hadn’t made the cut surface, very tricky for visitors.
On one of our days touring, we visited Stonehenge. This is a full sized replica of the original one in England. It was commissioned by a winery in Margaret River, but something went wrong and they didn’t follow through on the contract. Since it had already been prepared, a local farmer bought the granite rocks and erected it on his property. It is all properly aligned for the winter and summer solstice and is brilliant.
We also visited the Lucky Bay Brewery, which was very pleasant and visited the beaches in this area before continuing our trip.
The next part of our trip was a bit of nostalgia for Bruce, visiting Norseman where he first starting his teaching career in 1979. Norseman was a bit disappointing in a way since it is only a shell of a town from when Bruce lived there. Many of the shops were closed down and two of the three houses that Bruce lived in were demolished. The town looked very clean now and is relying on tourists a lot. Apparently a mine is going to reopen soon, which might revitalise the town a bit.
The Salmon Gums Hotel was very impressive, though closed and looking for new owners. Bromus Dam was looking very neat and tidy, it is now a proper camping ground and the runoff catchment area still works to keep water in the dam all year around.
We took a nice drive along the Dundas Rocks tourist drive and coincidently visited a young miner’s grave exactly 126 years after his death.
The old Post Office has been done up and is now a tourist centre and Aboriginal Heritage centre. There is a large roundabout here with some very interesting camel sculptures. The roads in Norseman are all very wide since historically the camel trains needed space to turn around.
After Norseman we parted company with Jim and Anne, who continued across the Nullarbor to visit family in South Australia. Rosie and Bruce continued up to Kalgoorlie so that we could play the new Kalgoorlie golf course. This course was created with money from the mines and government, but only on the condition that the other clubs had to amalgamate into the one club. It is a magnificent grass green course carved out of the desert sands and is very impressive.
We couldn’t get over how much run we got on the fairways. The ball seemed to keep going until it ran off into the scrub and red dirt. We kept adjusting our club choices until we could stop the ball. Rosie and Bruce made up our own rule that if you ran off into the dirt, you could place the ball back on the fairway without penalty. We didn’t want to ruin our clubs.
Our second game was much better, we kept the same rule, but did manage to keep the ball in play more often. There is a lot of potential at this course and hopefully we will get back there again.
On the way home, we passed through Cunderdin and had to stop at the Ettamogah Pub, this is a great idea and would bring back memories for everyone who read the cartoons in the youth.
The year ended quietly after this, with our usual Christmas festivities at Daen and Sophie’s.
