A walk down Emu Bay Road before dinner
If you've got half an hour before your table, Deloraine's worth a stroll. Here's a short route from the river to our front door.
From the river to the foyer
Start at the Meander River, which runs through the middle of town and looks its best an hour before sunset. There's a path along the bank where locals walk their dogs and where, on a quiet evening, you can hear water over stones and the first lights of the town coming on.
Cross the bridge and head up Emu Bay Road. The shops along the way are small, local and closed by now, but their windows are worth reading: handmade ceramics, woollen jumpers, books about the Tiers and a stack of preserves labelled in a hand I can only describe as confident.
Worth noticing on the way
The Tiers at dusk
On a clear evening the Great Western Tiers turn pink and then slate-blue, and you can see their whole edge from the middle of the bridge. Locals stop there without thinking about it, which is how you know the view is real.
The craft shops
Deloraine takes its crafts seriously. Even on a quiet weekday there's a pottery, a woodworker and a weaver within a few doors of each other, and the town fills with visitors on craft fair weekends. We feel the difference in the foyer, in the best possible way.
Our front door
You'll know it by the tall windows and the brass plate. Walk straight in, say hello to Christine in the old ticket booth and tell her whether you walked or drove. She keeps an informal tally.
If you do the walk before dinner, you'll arrive hungry and relaxed, which is exactly the state Glenn Fraser likes his guests to be in.
You'll probably notice that the street smells different depending on the hour. In the late afternoon it smells of woodsmoke and baking, and by dusk of cold air and damp leaves. By the time you reach our door, it smells of Glenn's pastry, which is the best of the three by some distance.