Minlaton (Mn-la-ton, not min-lay-ton)

August 20, 2022

While in Ardrossan and playing with the lovely ladies of the Ardrossan Golf Club they suggested I sign up to play in the Warooka Open, just down the road from Minlaton, being one to support local clubs I did just that. We booked in to the Minlaton caravan park (the Point Turton one had no sites available for a rig our size) for 4 nights. The park was not super picturesque but staff were friendly, amenities clean and park was quiet and close to town, a bit of a bargain too at $30 a night!

The weather improved a bit if you took advantage of it, as the sun came out but did not always last too long.

We took a drive down to check out the course and township of Warooka In preparation for the “Big Day”, it was ladies day and they were just finishing up. The lady we spoke to said that the tournament would be dependent on numbers and weather. 2 days before the event I received a text to tell me that it was not going ahead due to insufficient numbers (the weather had put a lot of people off). Such a shame what was I to do now?

When I woke the morning of the cancelled golf it was a beautiful sunny day so I quickly dressed to take the girls for a walk not wanting waste the sun. By the time I was ready and the girls on the leads, the sun had gone and it was threatening to rain, blow it! we will go anyway but chose an alternate route so we could get some cover from the shop awnings if the heavens opened up, as it was by the time we had been to the paper shop, bakery and clothes shop it was sunny again so we took in the sights of the golf course and nature park walking home and it was still sunny when we got back. Being sunny but still cold, Don and I decided to check out the local Brewery “Watsacowie Brewery” an odd name and when we got there we found out the meaning a Cowie is a source of water at least that’s what the sign there said however in the dictionary the only thing I could find (don’t want to give you incorrect information so I researched it!) is “a pill especially of ecstasy (or a bag of cocaine in some places)” or a left handed person - “Me, I guess” . I wanted to add something about some good friends we had by that name but couldn’t think of anything witty, I have since researched further and found that it is the Ngadjuri name water and also a suffix to several town names around their region. We left the park and took a 7km drive to find that it was in fact 500 metres up the road when we worked that out Don took home the car. I had seen the first sign post but not the next - whoops won’t make a navigator. On to the actual brewery, there was a lovely fire going and they allowed the girls inside so we settled in for the afternoon, Don tried a variety of different beers and strengths ranging from ales to stouts (3 to 7%) and I tested each of the 4 flavours of brewed vodka seltzers with the rose and cucumber being my favourite, think I might add a drop of rose water to my next vodka and soda. After several hours and putting on the wobbly boots we walked home in the rain!