JET-setting Chippenham bowls players has been forging links with fellow sportsmen down under in Australia.

When Chippenham Park celebrated its 80th anniversary last year a number of plaques were commissioned and presented to visiting teams.

So when member Rodney Ponter, 70, announced he and his wife Margaret was flying out to Australia to visit his daughter Rachel and three grandchildren in Maroochydore, Queensland, earlier this year he asked whether he could take a plaque to the local bowls club over there.

Ponter said: "We were going out there for six weeks and I came up with the idea of presenting one of our plaques to the bowls club in Maroochydore. I put it to our president Brian Coombs and everyone was all in favour of it."

The Ponters actually only had five weeks in Australia because they stayed for three nights in Bangkok on the way out and three nights in Singapore on the home journey.

But in that time they managed to visit The Maroochydore Beach Bowls Club on three or four separate occasions in between catching up on their daughter and her family.

Ponter presented the Maroochydore club's director of bowls Barry Sullivan with the plaque and was shown around the facilities.

"Their club had three seven-rink greens so they can put on 21 matches at a time," he said. "The had a lovely dining room there which is open to the general public for lunch and evening meals. It was so big it was almost the same size as the whole indoors of Chippenham Park Bowling Club.

"I didn't have a game out there because there was a big fortnight long all-Australian competition taking place.

"My wife is not a big bowls fan but we went to club two or three times and had a meal or a coffee and watched a bit of the competition."

Ponter said the town of Maroochydore was not too dissimilar to Chippenham but said they placed a lot more importance on their bowls over there.

"It is a nice place and the beach was not too far away from the club," he said. "The next door town also has three seven-rink bowling greens at its club so the sport is very popular in Australia."

Ponter hopes to return to the club late this year or early next year. Maroochydore bowlers have been invited to pay Wiltshire a visit.