Lawn Bowling

A few weeks ago I made friends with some local Melbourne boys. This week, they were nice enough to invite me over for a BBQ and to join them in a game of lawn bowling. I was so grateful for the BBQ as this was the first time since I left home that I have had a real cooked meal at someone’s house. They made wings and sausages and had the most impressive salad I have ever seen. It was delicious! After dinner we headed over to the lawn bowling courts, where we were joined by the older folk, and some very serious, dedicated lawn bowlers. It was the perfect excuse to have a few causal “schooners”!

At first I had a bit of trouble as I really did not understand how to control the weight of the ball, as I continuously was tempted to roll it with force, as this is what I am used to with regular 10 pin bowling. Lawn bowling however, is completely different. Lawn bowling (to me), somewhat resembles curling. Where there is a small white ball placed at the other end of the lawn, and each player has to roll the ball closest to the white ball. Like curling, you are allowed to knock each other’s ball out of place. The player’s whose ball is closest to the white ball at the end of the round gets 2 points. We played on teams of two. I would like to say that I carried my team to the ultimate win! (But then again…I would be lying to you)

The balls are quite tricky to roll as they have a weight in the one side, so you must be very smooth and accurate in which way you roll the ball, as it curves slightly to the way the weight is placed.
All in all, it was a very fun but unsuccessful night for me; I was on the loosing team so we had to buy the next round…