Sailing Around Australia; Amazing Coincidences

Tambo River, Gippsland Lakes, Victoria

25/3/2015 Amazing Coincidences

Tambo River, Gippsland Lakes, Victoria

After returning to Lakes Entrance last Thursday to catch up with Stephen and Sharon on Shiraz, we were looking at places to go on Saturday.

As the Shiraz crew are on a mission to head north on Monday, they didn’t want to go too far into the Gippsland lakes and we were looking to go further than we had been so far so we looked at places half way.

We had talked about going to the Barrier Landing Anchorage or even to Boxes Creek for an overnighter, when out of the blue I had an idea. “Let’s do lunch at Metung” I said, “if we can find space on the jetty”.

As in my previous blog, we found space on the jetty, went ashore and had just finished lunch, when a ferry arrived and a hundred or so people got off and another hundred or so arrived for weigh in for their fishing competition.

Coincidentally, two ladies had tickets to Opera at the Lakes. One lives in Melbourne and the other in Bairnsdale. These ladies, after a morning swim, decided that as they make their way over to Lakes Entrance, that a coffee break would be nice. They hadn’t been to Metung for quite a while, so they chose this nice little town as a break in their trip.

After finishing our lunch Leanne was over at the tents watching the fish being weighed. I was sitting at the table right next to the jetty, people watching, when two ladies caught my attention.

One was wheeling a zimmer frame just like my dad now uses. The other seemed to be paying a lot of attention to Easy Tiger, which was tied to the end of the jetty.

Then it hit me like a bolt of lightning. The lady now sitting on her zimmer frame was, in fact, my Dad’s 87 year old sister Delys. My aunt that I hadn’t seen for 14 years!

I also then realised that the other lady was in fact Brenda Smith, my Dad’s partner for 20 years.

After recovering from the shock realization, I literally leapt to my feet and ran over to Leanne, to say “come quick, I’ve just seen Brenda and Aunt Delys”. She looked at me incredibly and then we stormed towards Delys as she sat on her zimmer frame.

“Gee, your very cordial to strangers”, I said after an initial greeting. “my name is Steve Ludemann” . Well, the look of amazement was priceless.

Brenda returned and again, there was amazement. Brenda and my Dad had spent a couple of weeks on Easy Tiger with us at Quindalup a few years ago. Brenda had just said to Delys, that she thought the boat at the end of the jetty looked remarkably like Easy Tiger.  She was right.  

The next few hours were spent catching up and reminiscing.

I knew that Delys lived in a nursing home in a Bairnsdale, near the lakes and had done some preliminary investigating into how to get over there for a visit. (we haven’t had access to a vehicle here).

Joyfully, amazing coincidences combined to solve the logistics problem.

Aunt Delys, Leanne, me and Brenda at Metung Hotel.