We arrived in Port Lincoln of Friday 22nd of April.  The other four couples had arrived on Wednesday. Neil, Lorraine, Les, Fiona, Ray and Lyn had travelled from Ceduna and Neil and Kerry McIlwaine from Coffin Bay.  The Ceduna six had played in the Easter Tournament in the town.  Their loss in the final match of the mixed fours had cost Neil, Lorraine, Les and Fiona first place, but they did come third.  They had enjoyed a couple of weeks at Shelley Beach.  The above four had agreed to play in the Tumby Bay tournament on the 23rd and 24th and on Friday afternoon they received a phone call looking for another team.  So glad we weren’t in the mix for this tournament, four days next week will be more than enough bowls for us.  So the two car loads of Geraldton bowlers travelled the 47 kilometres back and forth to Tumby Bay each day.  There were no prizes won to record.

We went for a roll on Friday afternoon at the Port Lincoln Bowling Club.  Neil McIlwaine had established a friendship there, the year before when they were travelling.  Port Lincoln Club has a carpet synthetic surface.  To conclude our day we joined with the others for drinks and nibbles in the camp kitchen and cooked our tea there.  The guys even did the dishes in the area provided near the ablution block.

We were happy to be doing our own thing over the weekend.  Our stay was at the Discovery Port Lincoln Caravan Park on Kirton Point.  It is a huge park overlooking Boston Bay. There is a small jetty for fishing at the bottom of the rise.  We had five bays in a row at the top of the park.  Fantastic views, but dealing with your awning and the wind was a challenge.  It was easier not to put it out.

On Saturday we did the washing and then went into town for lunch.  We found a reasonable restaurant on the foreshore and wore our masks, even though regulations re Covid mandatory masks had been lifted In S.A. the week before.  We walked the foreshore and the jetty named Brennan Jetty.  Took another couple of photos of the famous racehorse Makybe Diva.  The owners Tony and Christine Santic of the three time Melbourne Cup winner had a connection to Port Lincoln.  The horse won in 2003, 2004 and 2005 and is the highest stakes winner in Australian history.  The horse won $14,526,685. The sculpture was placed on the foreshore in 2006. There is also a sculpture of a tuna polar.  It commemorates all who took part in this pioneering form of fishing for tuna and laid the foundation for today’s success in the industry.  

On Sunday morning we went for a drive to the Marina and Fisherman’s Jetty.  We had a very interesting morning.  Being a Sunday there wasn’t much going on with the fishing vessels, but one was being loaded with huge containers of pilchards.  We watched from the car for a while and eventually got out for a closer look.  The guy on the forklift was a little younger than us and obviously enjoyed our interest.  Once the vessel was loaded he stopped to talk with Peter and answer his questions.  The boat goes out twice a day with the same amount of pilchards to feed the tuna in the ponds.  He said if it wasn’t such an awful day he would have suggested we go out for a look.  But it was too windy and it would be horrible out behind the island.  They are small operators and only have 5 hectares of tuna ponds.  They feed out 50 tonne of pilchards a day.  It’s hard to get your head around the cost of this operation from February until June!  The tuna are caught and put into the ponds in February.  They weigh and measure 100 of the tuna in each pond and use that as the average.  The pilchards are fed to the tuna via a spinner apparatus which our ex farmer friend pointed out to us.  That could be over 7,000 tons of feed to the tuna before they are harvested!  The guy had been a pig farmer at Port Lincoln, but with the decline in the industry and significant debt they decided to sell.  This little job suits him fine and will do until he retires he said.  We drove around to the boat jetty.  There were great views across Porter Bay.

Monday was Anzac Day and wash day for the bowlers.  And we found that Neil Mc had been unwell overnight and had tested positive for Covid.  I decided we were not going to dinner together in the camp kitchen and the others respected my concern.  Peter went down for a while and had a drink with the three couples.  It was the last time in the 2 weeks that we were together that this would happen.  On Tuesday morning Kerry Mc had tested positive.  This was the first day of bowls and Kerry and I were supposed to be playing the ladies triples together with someone from another club.  Eventually at the bowling club, after what seemed a real dogs breakfast, they found two players to play with me.  Sue from Kirton and June from Port Pirie.  Sue skippered in the first game and we were 6 all after 8 ends.  Then we fell in a hole! We went down a 5, 4, 3 and a 2 on the next four ends to lose by 14.  That’s bowls!  So then we decided we would rotate the positions and I moved up to Skipper.  We won the next game, so the decision became that we would stay as we were.  We won our third match and all agreed we had enjoyed our day together.  Peter had no Neil Mc to play with in the Men’s Pairs and he ended up playing with Fred the Tournament Director.  Neil E and Les P were winners of the men’s competition.

Ray and Lyn were going to play some of the days at Kirton and some of us had said we would stand out.  Well Covid fixed that plan! Fiona tested positive on Wednesday and her first symptoms were vomiting and diarrhoea all night.  She was quite sick for 8 days.  

On Wednesday the ladies played pairs and the men triples.  Neil and Peter from GBC played with Ray from Wonthella.  Lyn and I played together and we won two games and lost one. The Geraldton men came third having won two matches and a draw in the last one. 

Thursday was Mixed Pairs and Peter and I did okay but didn’t play to cut back in the first game.  We were just in front after 8 ends and then went down a six.  We were playing 2, 2, 2, 2.  The next game was 2, 4, 2 and we won that one.  The last match was 3 bowls pairs and that was down on the heavy grass that they had prepared for the tournament.  We lost to Steve and Sandy from a club at the bottom of the Yorke Peninsula.  They were great company and they came second.  Glad we helped them!  Neil and Lorraine were the winners.  Kirton have 2 synthetic greens and the old grass one.  We played a match each day on each of the greens.  Only a roll up on the green that you played on first.  A bit different!

On Friday we played Mixed Foursomes with Neil and Lorraine.  We only won one match.  The weather was horrible, especially in the afternoon when we had a shower of rain and it got really cold.  We had strong winds to deal with all day.  We played a Tumby Bay foursome in our last match and we were all successful with the raffle at night, so that was something.  The TB skippers name was Jeff Rau and Neil Blackmore had been his best man.  We stayed to dinner of crumbed whiting, chips and salad.  On Saturday we were advised that Neil E had tested positive although his symptoms were like a head cold and Lyn P had tested positive as well.  That was five of the group that were infected!  When would it be us?  Time to move to Streaky Bay.