Or maybe third? One of the delights of being in Queenstown at the end of 2009 was resuming contact with Darren Lovell, co-owner and chef at Fishbone, one of the town's most popular eateries. Darren and I first encountered each other more than 20 years ago in tiny pre-fab office built next to the printing presses for Time Out magazine in Fortitude Valley, Brisbane. We were both starting our journalism careers fresh out of university and most likely cutting short our lives by a couple of years thanks to the smoke we inhaled from Tony Grant Taylor and Paul Syvret in our fluro-lit hotbed of freelance writing.
We both ended up in Sydney for different organizations before setting off abroad to pursue our careers, and naturally drifted away from regular contact. I received an email out of the blue some time back from Darren saying he was taking over a restaurant in Queenstown and so when Sylvie and I arrived there we tracked him down and took him to lunch at Eichardt's, a hotel with a cosy bar and restaurant where I took this shot with the 5D and available light. Really, he hasn't changed a bit in 20 years. Swine. He and Mark arranged a wonderful dinner, with free champagne, for Sylvie and I and we loved every bite. Talented lads, and a wonderful and inspiring second act by an old friend.
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