Sunday, January 21, 2018

The highest tea

We just had the highest high tea in town, at the Wrest Point Revolving Restaurant.

 It was very amusing. When we arrived we were looking over Queensborough oval and the university, but in no time we were leaving it behind and pivoting towards Battery Point. I would estimate it was travelling at around 70cm a minute, out at the perimeter. I enjoy looking at mirror images of the world, and the central core of the restaurant is all mirrored walls and doors to make this possible. You can see bits of the view in reverse before you get around to see them directly.

 A perspiring young man brought us a tray of 4 x 4 of little cakes, and 4 each scones, smoked salmon sandwiches, brown bread sandwiches and white bread sandwiches (crusts cut off and after hours flung down 17 floors to the ravenous gulls, you imagine).

 Service was good, the food was very good without being amazing. The standout was a little green-tea-flavoured creamy inch-high cube that weighed about 0.00001 gram. Marcus was given some pretty cheap orange juice but that might be a kids menu thing. He is about 6' 1" though. Proper juice for everyone please.

 We had rotated right around the Derwent side and just made visual landfall back in Sandy Bay when the fire alarm went off. It said
 WOOOOP. WOOOOOP. WOOOOOP. THE FIRE ALARM HAS BEEN ACTIVATED. PLEASE WAIT FOR INSTRUCTIONS. 
 It said that about 150 times before we got any instructions. Staff went around saying to other groups (not us though) "It's a false alarm so just don't worry and stay calm". It went on and on. We were just finishing our 2nd cup of tea – we'd finished but probably would have stayed to enjoy the view a bit longer. Finally some Wrest Point security or maintenance people arrived and a fire warden. They wandered around poking this and that then frowned and…
 WOOOOP. WOOOOOP. WOOOOOP. THE FIRE ALARM … 
 … gradually word was given to us from Perspiring Boy that we should please make our way to the fire door. We did, near the front of the queue. We were told to wait there so we did. Then someone else came by and looked astonished that we were just standing there, and said 'Open it! Go down!'
 …HAS BEEN ACTIVATED. PLEASE WAIT FOR INSTRUCTIONS. 
 So we did; we were behind a slow moving lady and it took ages to move down the narrow fire escape. Everyone stayed calm and whatever we were thinking, we all stayed polite and pleasant. The slow moving group kindly moved aside and we got to ground and went out through a loading bay. So that was a little bit of excitement. We were allowed back up after a bit of time standing around, but we just went up to pay. High tea was $42 per head. but they kindly charged us for 3 rather than 4 people for our inconvenience.

We'd certainly like to visit again, this time to see the view by night.

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