Monday, 13 August, 2018
Today the Irregulators decided to have their technical meeting, not in China Town, as usual, but instead in Castlemaine. We caught the 10:20 from Southern Cross station that I nearly missed because it left from a different platform than I had expected but Lucky saved the day for me by sending me a timely note of the correct platform.
It was a train ride of just over two hours with a few stops along the way. One of these was in Woodend where Hooley joined us. Once we arrived in Castle Mange we walked around town for about an hour. It is a sleepy town in general with a little sign of advanced progress along one restaurant street.
The highlights were visit to arts / hardware / scrap / crap shops in historic old buildings. One was absolutely massive with a huge range of stuff. We then headed to the Cumberland Hotel where we had lunch booked in the Bistro for 12:30. From the sublime to the ridiculous, after the full deal with the previous Post to this one where I took no photos at all. All I have to offer is the menu for the Bistro.
CUMBERLAND-HOTEL-FOOD-MENU-NEW-FROM-DEC-17
Most of the group ordered the Fish and Chips. Lucky ordered the chicken schnitzel. I ordered the Chicken Atlantis which was chicken breast with Smoked Salmon, Asparagus, Dill and White Wine Cream Sauce. It reminded me a lot of the old Veal Oscar. See:
The guys all had a boutique beer and we went through a couple of bottles of Red. Not too bad really. Two of the group caught an early train. The rest of us crossed under the railway line to go to the Railway Hotel.
We had a couple of rounds with the guys ordering a local craft beer and me a ??? red wine of course. We caught the 3:47 from Bendigo and sat in the second cabin where we were repeatedly told we should not sit unless we had a reservation but they did not kick us out. There was a canteen directly in front of us but it did not serve grog, which was a pity. This train stopped at different stations than the one on the way up but did stop at Woodend where we said goodbye to Hooley.
We got into Southern Cross and Lucky and I decided to take metro trains straight home where as I believe that the (fit) Ghost was going to walk home. I had a small wait for the tram up Glenferrie Road and then walked the last bit and was home just after 6:00 PM.