On the Coast – Over 55 Issue 32 I November/December 2019(clone) | Page 29

Fast Facts Stay & Dine Package – Rendezvous Melbourne from $199 a night Inclusions: • Overnight accommodation • 2 Course dinner per person served at Strait Café on the first night. • A complimentary bottle of wine per stay served with your dinner at Strait Cafe • Free cancellation up until 2pm one day before arrival • Additional charges apply for extra guest. Bedding configuration is subject to availability. Mrs Pictures has the porterhouse while I devour the tender lamb shoulder: a choir of angels crying on your tongue. Against a Melbourne backdrop of the ship’s bell clang of the trams, and the clip- clop of the hairy draft horses ferrying Asian tourists around city streets, we rendezvous as Rendezvous, sated and content to watch telly in our stylish suite. By chance the same Love Island producer meets us in the stunning wooden- panelled lift of the historic hotel. “You’re back early”. My wife and I exchange furtive glances. I look at my watch. It’s only 8:30. I feel shame. "We’re from Sydney,” I smile, weakly. However, we are back in time for Graham Norton. The following morning, we breakfast downstairs at the hotel. It’s excellent, with lashings of home-cooked bacon and Paris-worthy pastries, all as light as helium. But we come to Melbourne for one thing: killer coffee. Post-bacon, we thread our way to Melbourne’s iconic Hardware Lane – only a 10 min stroll from Rendezvous in Sketchers. Here we are shepherded to a table by a restaurant tout in a pea-coat, to enjoy a Melbourne coffee, ‘alfreshco’. Over coffee, a girl approaches our table selling home-made binis. How very Melbourne. Sans bini, we stroll back to the hotel, wired from toe-curling Melbourne coffee. I catch my reflection in a shop window and think about the Love Island casting. I would look like crap in Speedos, I nod to my reflection. Flanking the Rendezvous Hotel is the Immigration Museum. Housed in the erstwhile Customs House building ($15 p.p.), this thoughtfully curated museum punches above its weight; with interactive displays and hip curation. My wife and I A day trip to remember... Ride the Ferry and have lunch at the Davo! are the children of British migrants. So it’s rather moving to interview (via video installation) a family desperate to migrate from Britain to Australia. We had to reject them of course. Those terrible post-war British teeth. Later that evening, with a gang of Melbourne chums, we hit Paris Cat Jazz club to catch an early show, before dining in the flanking street at Max’s at Hardware Lane. These Mexicans are rather proud of their chic city, as Hardware Lane, with its red-bricked pavers, buskers, and alfresco aesthetic, resembles any street in Paris or Berlin. As we check out of our gorgeous suite, we take one last lean over the balcony to see bustling Flinders St below. We both wish we could stay for another day but our Uber awaits. Perhaps I could rethink that audition for Love Island, post Light & Easy. Ferry Trip & Lunch Package ONLY $30 per head Only 2 minutes’ walk from Woy Woy station the M.V Saratoga departs Fisherman’s Wharf Monday to Friday at 10.45am and 12.30pm and on the weekends 9.30am, 10.45am or 12.30pm for a relaxing ride on the beautiful Brisbane Waters. There is an option of a 1 ½ hour COCKATOO ferry cruise departing from 10:15am with return on the regular ferry at 1:15pm or 2:15pm. Inform the Boat Captain and he will ring the club prior to your arrival where the bus will pick you up from Davistown Wharf and bring you to Davistown RSL Club. The bus will then depart the club at either 1.00pm and 2.00pm for your return journey home. Bookings are essential. For more information contact Davistown RSL Club on 4363-0103 and Central Coast Ferries on 0418 63 13 13. Email [email protected] 2 Course Menu – Main & Dessert Minimum of 25 people For your next group booking look no further than Davistown RSL with a wide variety of choices. DAVISTOWN RSL CLUB Highly Commended 2014 Chef’s Table NOVEMBER/DECEMBER – ISSUE 32 29