Lawn bowling

Well - I'm one step closer to becoming an Aussie! I've now played lawn bowls! Every year the Australian Society of Zoo Keepers has a bowling charity event for some species. Each zoo organizes their own bowling event and chooses whether they want to go lawn bowling or 10-pin bowling. So this year, Western Plains Zoo went lawn bowling for Philippine crocodiles.

The basic idea of lawn bowls is that you try to roll these asymmetrical balls (bowls) as close to this white ball (jack) as possible. If you want to know more about it, you'll just need to come over. And while this is a quintessentially Australian thing, there were lots of Aussies who had never played before, so I was in good company. And my team won!! Probably because I was with the zoo's bowling expert... but I did manage to score 1 of our 7 points!

We had a barbecue before hand, so we could stuff our faces with snag sandwiches ... which is exactly what I'm doing in the picture below. Then there was an auction afterwards, which was also lots of fun. I didn't buy everything, but it was fun to sit and watch.

Only drawback of the night was that it was a cold, drizzly, windy night. I think Jo (one of the vet nurses that I work with) was one of the cutest cold people.