Our last day in Alexandra

A relaxing day is planned to allow us to catch up on laundry etc before heading off tomorrow in our respective directions. Phil and Luth  are flying to Auckland and we plan to get a rental car and begin our road trip of the South Island, with our first stop at Timaru on the East Coast.

Starting the day with a local walk, we head down along the river side and over the Shaky Bridge with a plan to end up at the Industry Lane Cafe (a Macdonald favourite) for a cup of coffee, and perhaps a date scone. We did end up having the coffee and shared a date scone (they are large). This was our second visit to the cafe which is ideally located on the rail trail from Clyde and has a great success rate at attracting the attention of passing bike riders who are easily tempted for a coffee and sugar hit from the pastries. 

Our walk then took us back through the town, where we had a good look around and found Phil and Luth hiding in another cafe in town. They gave the walk a miss but still needed their daily fix.

We also discovered that it is Deirdre's birthday today, and we have a nice dinner booked in Clyde for this evening.

Besides the morning walk, and a nice lunch prepared by Luth, the rest of the day was spent packing, doing laundry etc.

It was another beautiful sunny day in Alexandra, even a bit on the warm side. We have had a great run with the weather.

Tonight we are going to Clyde for dinner to a restaurant that the Macdonald's have not yet tried, but looks pretty good from the outside. The plan is to get to the town a bit before dinner so we can have a walk around the quaint main street. We couldn't do it when we visited earlier in the week because it had been taken over by the "Spirited Women" event.


We rediscovered the laneway where Peter's cousin, Tony, has his butcher shop




Having parked the car we wandered down the main street




Our Dining venue "Olivers"

We had short walk down the main street (it is a very short walk), but lovely old buildings and homes bring it to life.










One street away from the main street were some more modern buildings but nicely designed to fit in with the feel of the town. It has a bit of a NSW Southern Highlands feel about it.



Dinner at Olivers was excellent. We all had far too much food as the servings were huge, but a few desserts managed to be shared.

The old stone building that houses the restaurant has a lot of character, and has been given a modern interior touch that has been well done. There is a large central fireplace, modern open kitchen and a microbrewery. The beer was pretty good.


Interior decor in the restaurant


A look out into the adjoining garden

The whole complex is set up to be a great function centre as well, and in a pretty town like Clyde, I assume they are sought after as a venue for weddings etc.

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