With the threat of rain hanging over our weekend rally at Foxton, out came the porch awning from it’s home (while not in use) under the caravan bed. This would give us some protection getting in and out the door. As always, Muffy loves to explore any interesting space, no matter how often she has been there before. She couldn’t get into the under-bed storage area quickly enough. Any hidey-hole is an irresistible hole to her.
I’ve checked it out, Mum.
The expected rain never happened, and we enjoyed the warm sunny weather, without a breath of wind, most unusual so close to the coast. We stayed at the Manawatu Caravan Club grounds, where club members have static caravans on site. There are a limited number of power sites available for casual campers, and our club booked most of these for our weekend rally. The locals are very friendly, and often stop and chat as they go about the camp.
On Friday evening we walked the short distance to the Foxton Bowling Club. This club offers a very good, reasonably priced meal in their restaurant on Friday nights. We had been there previously when camping at Foxton, so knew that we could get good value for money. Several of us chose fried fish, delicious with nice crispy batter.
There was a game of Petanque organised on Saturday afternoon, a knock-out game with simplified rules to suit our lack of sporting prowess. We weren’t playing with just any old set of balls, but a special presentation set given to Derek as a “going away gift” when he left a previous workplace.
Derek and his fancy petanque set
Names were pulled out and we were paired up with a partner. Think the technique of most of us was sadly lacking, but a few of us performed quite well. As we were playing on grass instead of the more usual sand, the balls often rolled further than anticipated. It was all a good laugh and kept us and the residents in the camp entertained for a while. I was knocked out in the first round, so sat back and enjoyed watching everyone else trying their best.
Was that a good throw, I wonder?
Robin did a little better than me, won his first round, then was beaten second time up.
The final was a closely contested game between Geoff and Elaine, with them both performing very well. The eventual winner was Geoff, who was duly presented with a certificate. The current form of the game originated in 1907 in Provence, in southern France. The casual form of the game of petanque is very popular, played by about 17 million people in France, mostly during their summer vacations, and is also widely played in neighbouring Spain.
Congratulations, Geoff
The rest of the weekend was much more laid back. We had the use of the hall for our evening get-togethers. There was a competition or two to keep our brains limbered up, a recipe swap for the ladies, and the men took turns telling jokes. The resident campers trundled back and forth to the beach. One of the fisherman had been lucky and we were proudly shown a good sized snapper that he was taking home for his evening meal. This is a lovely camp, with beautifully maintained grounds, nice friendly residents, and a very accommodating care-taker - but that’s another story.
The gang at the Manawatu Caravan Club Campground
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