Force of nature: Rochester Recreation Reserve’s Church St fenceline was destroyed by Campaspe River floodwaters.
Sport is not a high priority in the Rochester community at the moment, a rare situation indeed considering the “sports-mad’’ community often revolves around the activities of its many sporting organisations.
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Rarely, at least in Rochester, is sport not a front-of-mind subject for people in the town, but with the continuing threat of floods and on-going recovery effort the cricket whites, tennis racquets and lawn bowls have not yet seen the light of day.
Jane McCallum, president of Rochester Bowling Club’s ladies section, said her club had been fortunate in regard to water damage to its base.
“We didn’t have any water into the clubrooms at the bowling club and the A green had almost returned to a playable condition before this recent rainfall,” Mrs McCallum said.
“It is just too early to worry about bowls at the moment. I can see how it could be used as a distraction, but a lot of our members are still out of town.”
Rochester Bowling Club, between VIctoria and Ramsay St, is undergoing a major renovation program.
While the A green had recovered quickly and remained unaffected during the 2011 flood, the initial works on the C green have been impacted and B green (on the lowest part of the club) was again inundated.
Fortunately for the club the refurbishment work on the B green had not yet started.
Mrs McCallum said while she understood lawns bowls was a big part of many people’s lives, there were far greater issues before a return to the sport was considered.
Drying out: Before the recent rainfall this was the condition of greens at Rochester Bowling Club, with Mick Gahan assisting the “drying out’’ process.
She said lawn bowls often occupied three or four, and occasionally more, days of the week for members of the club.
“A lot of people are so shell shocked,” she said.
At Rochester Recreation Reserve, home to the netball and football clubs, cricket club, little athletics, pony club, fishing club, and other organisations, the clean-up effort was continuing last week.
Clean-up crew: Members of clubs from a variety of sporting organisations exchanged bats, racquets and balls for mobs, brooms and buckets. Among those were Rochester netballers.
An invitation from the Kyabram Little Athletics Centre for athletes from Rochester, Echuca and Moama to be involved in their competition, was extended last week.
The Kyabram group has also extended an invitation to the Nathalia and Shepparton clubs.
Claudia Moore, from the Kyabram club, said if little aths was to go ahead tomorrow (Wednesday), given the predicted rainfall, it could be a full house at the Kyabram P-12 College site.
