Friday, February 11

It turned out to be a pretty good birthday lunch.  The restaurant we had booked was not easy to get to.    We couldn’t drive up to the door and had to park several hundred metres away and much higher up the hill.  There was a rough track connecting the car park with the restaurant and there were about 70 steps.  The restaurant has pretensions to be a bit special: white tablecloths, posh food and prices to match.  The same complex has a café  attached where you can get pies and coffee and most of the customers were athletic types who had hiked from distant carparks.

 

The waitress who looked after us was out of her depth.  She was on her own but, luckily, there were only three of four tables occupied: most of the customers had opted for the outside tables where they could be entertained by passing peacocks.  The menu prices were a bit rich: $39.90 for a main meal, when the going price in Launceston is more like $25.00.  Of course, having a white tablecloth adds to the prices.  There were a couple of lunch specials which attracted me, including Seafood Chowder with a cob for about $25 and I thought I might have that.  There was also Chowder as an entrée for $15 but I assumed the Luncheon Special would be a bigger serve.

 

When it came, it looked fine; not a big serve but it was only lunch, after all.  The cob didn’t arrive and I eventually had to remind the waitress.  I think, in fact, I had been given the entrée serve and would be charged extra for the bread.   The bill was paid and Jamie walked up the hill to get his car.  We had discovered that Marilyn and I could be spared the hill-climb; Jamie could drive down a narrow service road to a turning circle where his elderly parents would be waiting. 

We waited in the shade of a Giant Sequoia tree which had been planted in 1892 and, while we were standing there, Marilyn glanced at the bill she was still holding. “It’s the wrong bill,” she said.  “We didn’t have a bottle of Sauvignon Blanc.”  Off she went to sort it out.

 

The waitress, it seemed, had mixed up the bills and we had been overcharged $114.  Quite an eventful birthday, as it turned out.