Ou le Pétanque?

Anyone for Pétanque? Mais oui!

I was invited to play in a pétanque tournament in Kangaroo Valley, in honour of Bastille Day. 28 teams of 6 - 8 people entered The Friendly Inn’s annual Bastille Day International Teams Pétanque Championship.

This massive event took place in the pub’s enormous beer garden, complete with live music, and with pastries and baguettes offered to participants. The day was well attended, by young and old.

I’d seen many games of boules when I lived in France in the 90s, but today I discovered “pétanque” and “boules” are two different names for the same game.

In French, the word “boule” means “ball” and people often refer to the game simply as boules. Outside of France the game is usually referred to as “pétanque”. It’s a tossing game where you throw the boule to try to get as close as possible to the target ball in a 4-metre-wide, 15-metre-long pitch.

Points are scored for each