Well, Linda and I survived our inaugural Barham caravan and camping chat and chomp fest weekend, and have already booked for next year - as did most of the other 2018 attendees and much to Kevin Reade's annoyance. He thought he'd annoyed enough people so they'd stay away in future. No such luck, Kev. When you stay with fellow Rotarians for a few days, you find out a lot you never knew about them, most of it good.

It was a really beaut, low impact weekend (some stayed for one night, others with more time on their hands stretched the weekend to five nights) at one of the prettiest caravanning and camping parks on the Murray. And even though Stan and Rhonda have a mega-van set up so big it needs its own postcode, no-one sneered about those in more modest options. That we heard of anyway. Some had smaller vans. John and Caroline had a ute mounted thingo and some stayed in the well-appointed on-site cabins. Linda and I rolled out Henry the Hippyvan.

The park operators enjoy our visits as well and turn on a nibbles night on Friday.

Barham is a fascinating place. We'd never been there before. It's a good-sized country town with a good mix of walking paths, clubs, pubs, bakery and coffee shops. Oh, and a good smattering of outlets for retail therapy.

We organised own barbeque on Friday evening, ate at the Barham club next door on Saturday evening, and survivors - sorry, longer stayers - ate at the Happy Elephant Thai restaurant on Sunday.

Apparently some played golf and bowls. The best piece of advice came from Nick Christian to Phil Harris: You'd really improve your game if you stood a bit further from the ball after you hit it.

Seriously, thanks Kevin for organising a very pleasant little adventure

 

Wayne Gregson