Day 39 - Rutherglen

Left Melbourne later than planned but plans aren’t our strong suite.

The night was spent in Rutherglen, an item very high on Sue’s bucket list after an overnight stay there a few years ago. The van was abandoned for the night, as we stayed in the Victoria Hotel. It’s an old pub and it looks it. The carpet is 1940’s vintage, the floor boards creak and groan even when you stand and look at them but it has an ambiance which appealed to Sue.

Unfortunately, their website, which makes the place look spectacular but the reality is something different. The shower cubicles were covered in used towels and soap packets and in the gents, two of the doors were broken. However, the bed was comfortable and we had the upstairs floor to ourselves – heaven knows who had been using the showers or how long it had been since they were cleaned.

The window of our room opened, quite romantically onto the wooden upstairs verandah.

We dined out at “Taste”, a restaurant opened by a couple from Melbourne. It was expensive by our standards but the service and the food were on par with the best we have experienced and that includes several Michelin star venues in France. Sue had lobster and duck, whilst I started with a salad and then lamb cutlets raised on Kangaroo Island. The red was local – a big, full bodied red. When dessert came along, the chef, Gavin, came to our table and discussed what he’d like to provide within the constraints of our diet. That’s never happened before!

He even suggested a local Muscat to go with the dessert and he had it just right.

Back at the Victoria, we sat in the dark on the balcony by ourselves, finished the bottle of red and then retired among the ghosts of other lovers.