We’re gonna get hammered!

And we aren’t talking about drinking! The weather doesn’t look very good overnight. Here’s the forecast “An INTENSE frontal system will move across the B.C. Coast on Monday with 50-70 mm expected.” Good thing we golfed 4 times this week because the courses don’t need anymore rain!

Today we woke up to see a fisherman going out on his boat right in front of Newman. Rain or shine, weekday or weekend. What a hardy bunch and a what tough way to make a living!

Today I finally got around to using up the rotten bananas we had in Newman. We’ve been struggling a bit with our convection oven that is a combo microwave/convection oven. It seems to be a great microwave, but not so great as a convection oven. Good thing we brought our own convection/toaster oven with us from home so I can use our toaster oven instead to bake. Richard enjoyed his freshly baked banana dark chocolate chip muffins for breakfast!

We had booked a tee time for Morningstar Golf Club today at 11:50am. Morningstar is in Parksville, B.C., which is about a 30 minute drive south of us. The 18 hole rate is $87. We were told the back nine was very hilly and it might be a good idea to get a motorized cart for the back nine. We elected to use the golf club’s ricksha golf carts for the front nine, so we could walk the course.

Instead of using a ricksha I wish I had this guy’s set up! An e-bike with a golf bag mounted on the front! This would be perfect rehab for my leg too! I might have to lighten my bag though, which could be problematic!

We were paired with a couple of nice members who play together every Sunday morning for 9 holes only. Pete and Stu showed us around the golf course and we learned from them that the course has been in receivership for the past 4-5 years. The golf course is set in a subdivision of nice houses and the golf course designer was Les Furber. We really enjoyed the Furber layout. Lots of dog legs and really tricky positional shots off the tee and into some of the greens. Furber has designed many great golf courses 3 of which I’ve played before: St Eugene Mission in Cranbrook, B.C., SilverTip in Canmore, Alberta and Varadero Golf Club in Cuba.

What wasn‘t so great about this golf course was the drainage! What a mucky, wet golf course!!! It hasn’t rained here in over a week and this course still has standing water on most of the course. I had to laugh on one hole where there were ropes leading up to the green with bark mulch put down to stop us from slipping as we walked up to the green. They had a small sign by the green that said “WET AREA”. I think they need to put the rope around the entire golf course and say “WET AREA”! After playing and walking 18 holes yesterday, today was no treat. We decided that since it was CART PATH ONLY even taking a cart on the back nine wouldn’t be easy for me since I would still have to walk back and forth from the cart path to my ball. So unfortunately today we quit after 9 and got a ”rain check”. We’ll think about how long the dry spell has been before going back to play that course! And talk about mud on our shoes and pants!! Omg. What a mess!! I know, we shouldn’t’ be complaining...we’re golfing in December in Canada!

Since we were in Parksville and we had time on our hands, we decided to go check out the town. Parksville is a beach town with lots of large sandy beaches. The city holds an annual sandcastle-building competition from mid-July to mid-August, dubbed “Parkesville Beachfest”. Beachfest is the only World Championship Sand Sculpting official qualification event in Canada.

After driving around their very disjointed downtown which was closed up tight on Sunday, we took a drive down to Rathrevor Beach Provincial Park to take a look at what the beach looked like. We didn’t see any sand castles on the frigid beach today but we did see a lot of rabbits!

There were rabbits everywhere!!! European and Eastern Cottontail rabbits. There was a sign staying they were not a part of the natural ecosystem, not to feed them and be aware of tripping hazards caused by rabbit burrows!