I had a glass of Three Wishes Riesling to start with and followed it with a Cascabel Roussanne, which went down a treat with the salmon plat du jour. I’d had visions of an in-depth exploration of some of the classics of French cuisine, but Madam reckoned the plat du jour was the way to go. Things will be different next time, when we’ve booked and arrive in the evening, having had a latish breakfast and skipped dinner.
We took a browse through the wine selection on the way out, which confirmed the we’ll have to come back notion, then headed off towards the Cascade brewery, where Madam was keen to take a wander through the gardens. I was less enthusiastic, despite the possibility of tasting familiar beers in draught rather than bottles mode. My beers of choice these days come from Tasmania (Boags or Cascade) or South Australia (Coopers), so I wasn’t going to be running across anything new and interesting.
But, Hughesy, I hear The Critical Reader suggest, it’ll be fresh. Draught beer. On tap!
True. But encountering fresh draught beer will only serve as a reminder of what I’m missing. In any case, Cascade isn’t the little oddity it was before the multinational owner (SAB Miller) started the marketing campaign that has had Cascade Light become the biggest selling light beer in Australia.
So I took a seat outside while Madam snapped away, and it wasn’t too long before we were back on the road, headed across the bridge to the night's accommodation. I’d set things up right on the iPad before we booked out of Fountainside, so finding the place was no hassle whatsoever, and settled down to tap out the Travelogue once we’d booked in.
Madam took herself off for a wander down towards the estuary shore and around the neighbourhood, locating the Beltana Hotel, which we’d pencilled in as the dinner venue.
Given my ‘druthers, of course, I’d have been replete after lunch at Remi’s and disinclined to get serious over dinner, which would have been an injustice as far as the Beltana is concerned.