AT THE COACHHOUSE MARINA RESORT

JAN 10 2014

 

THE accommodation here, at The Coachhouse, at Bateman’s Bay, NSW, is basic. They charge about $200 a night, which I know isn’t top end these days, but you don’t get much for it. We are staying at cabin 24, on Second Avenue. There are millions of avenues, with these cheap cabins everywhere, about 20 in each avenue, and God knows how many avenues. The cabins are cheaply made weatherboards, small with not much inside. Cicadas go at it all the time and there are these palm trees dotted all over the place. The swimming pool is ok but you can’t escape anyone. There is a cheap plasticky playground that the children don’t rate. One of the plastic equipment samples is a four legged stool which has one leg missing. There are tennis courts that look like they’ve been used millions of times and a dodgy looking beach volleyball court with imported sand. The table tennis table doesn’t have a net and the table soccer doesn’t have a ball. There are quite a few suckers like us wandering around with this kind of slow, holiday slouch. They are playing lazy tennis, or walking around in desultory fashion in groups, or having BBQ’s on the weedy grass, wearing sun hats and sunglasses and pastel coloured shorts. Every one of the adults has some kind of holiday smirk on his or her face, like they think they’ve won the lottery here in Batemans Bay, because they’re on holidays, and they are walking for the first time since the last holidays, and they get to practise their forehand or backhand at last.