Anyone for bowls?

Kat bowling, everyone else preparing in the back

This past weekend Amy and I were transported into proper Australia/English society by being taken by our friends to a Lawn Bowls Club in North Manly. Lawn bowling is generally the province of retirees and aristocrats but they got us in the door with the offer of jugs of beer and trash talking.

Lawn Bowling is played on an immaculately manicured rectangular court and is most similar to bocce ball whit the goal being to roll your balls closest to a smaller, off-color ball. The biggest difference between lawn bowling and bocce is that the balls you throw with are ellipsoid, rather than round and weighted to one side to facilitate curved throws.

Lawn bowling Gatorade

Amy and I quickly took on the role of kingmaker, being better at knocking other teams' balls out rather than actually being able to land ours the closest.

Debs: The Terminator of Lawn Bowls

Add in jugs of beer to the intense competitive nature of our group and it led to some memorable showdowns.

We followed up the day with a bbq at Kat and Web's place that led to over eating and the next even for the day, the introduction America's next great cultural export, of beer pong to the southern hemisphere.

Finally, after hours of failing at goddamn lawn bowls, we were back in our home territory.

Our non-yankee friends took quickly to the game and the smack talk and psyche outs flowed like water.

James on the psyche-out defense, Amy: Cool as ice

Let the game now spread like wildfire across the continent.

Sunday we ventured out to the RSL (Returned and Services League (similar to the Veteran's Association in the US) at Harbord Diggers to watch the UFC fight. In Australia, every community of decent size has one of these clubs and they host everything from resturants, bars, and gyms to scout troops to large events such as comedy acts and musicians. It is also common for them to house gambling operations like slot machines or sports bookies.


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It was a great place to watch the fights, there were lots of large projection screens and even stadium seating in one area. The cheap beers ($3.90 each) plus the prerequisite violence entailed in watching the fights made it a home away from home (away from home).

Sunset over Freshwater, never gets old