Where to stay near Earnscleugh Castle.

The castle is a short drive from Clyde. #46 Sunderland Street sits in the village itself: across the street from partner Duo Cafe, about seventy metres from bike hire, close to Clyde's restaurants and cafes, about four hundred metres from the Otago Central Rail Trail and Lake Dunstan Trail starts, and an easy walk from the lake. For a group of up to eight, it keeps the stay simple: one home, one kitchen, one booking and the village close by.

For a quick overview, start here: stay near Earnscleugh Castle. The rest of this guide gives the village context: what you can walk to, what is nearby, and why Clyde works well as the base.

The town was renamed Clyde on the twenty-second of May 1865, in honour of Lord Clyde — Colin Campbell, the Scottish field-marshal who held the "thin red line" at Balaclava during the Crimean War and ended the Siege of Lucknow during the Indian Rebellion of 1857. The street itself was named earlier, by John Turnbull Thomson, the Northumbrian-born Otago Chief Surveyor whose marathon reconnaissance survey of the province in 1857 and 1858 sprinkled Central Otago with names from his homeland — Lindis Pass after Lindisfarne Island, Mt Earnslaw after his grandfather's farm, and Sunderland Street after a port city in Tyne-and-Wear, half a world away.

The 10-minute heritage walking circle

Sunderland Street's heritage core sits within a few hundred metres of itself, and an afternoon walk takes in one Heritage New Zealand Category 1 listing and three Category 2 listings. Olivers, the Category 1 schist-stone facade at 28-34 Sunderland Street, was built in 1869 by Yorkshire merchant Benjamin Naylor as the Victoria Store and reopened in 1977 as a restaurant by Fleur Sullivan. Dunstan House, fifty-five metres east, is a Category 2 schist-and-kauri rebuild from 1898, with the original 1863 cellar still intact beneath.

Around the corner on Blyth Street, the former Clyde Post Office (Category 2, 1900) now operates as The Old Post Office, a restaurant, bar and garden with historic charm. Further along Sunderland Street, the Clyde Town Hall and Athenaeum (1869 and 1874-75 respectively, both Category 2) sit side by side, the Town Hall carrying a four-pillar Doric portico and triangular pediment by Mason & Clayton of Dunedin, the Athenaeum carrying Corinthian pilasters and a dentil course by Frederick Burwell of Queenstown. Sold to Dunstan Lodge No. 103 in 1954 and still in their use today.

The Otago Central Rail Trail

Five minutes' walk from the heart of the village, at the end of Sunderland Street, sits the western terminus of New Zealand's first rail trail. The Otago Central Rail Trail opened in February 2000, laid on the bed of the closed Otago Central Railway — the line that reached Clyde in April 1907 after twenty-nine years of building out from Dunedin, and ran its final passenger railcar on the twenty-fifth of April 1976 before closing for good on the thirtieth of April 1990. From the Clyde trailhead the trail runs one hundred and fifty-two kilometres to Middlemarch on a sub-2% gradient, through schist gorges, viaduct country, and the gold-rush ghost towns of Lauder, Oturehua and Wedderburn. Trail Journeys and Bike It Now! both rent here.

A second Great Ride, the Lake Dunstan Cycle Trail, opened on the eighth of May 2021 and runs forty-one kilometres north from the Clyde trailhead through the Cromwell Gorge to Cromwell, hugging the schist faces and lake-water spectacular of the dam-formed Lake Dunstan. From the front door of any village stay, the trailhead for both is a short stroll through the precinct.

Lake Dunstan and the Clyde Dam

Eleven minutes' walk from the village core, at the top of Hazlett Road, the Clyde Dam lookout opens onto New Zealand's largest concrete gravity dam — about one hundred metres high and four hundred and ninety metres long, holding back Lake Dunstan across what was, until 1992, the original Cromwell township and its orchards. The dam was the most expensive infrastructure project in New Zealand history, supporting a workforce of a thousand who lived in trucked-in "dam houses" through the 1980s. The lookout, and the path along the lake foreshore a few minutes further on, are the natural turn-around of an afternoon walk.

Where to eat

The dining choices in Clyde village are concentrated and easy to reach on foot. Duo Cafe, our breakfast partner, is across the street for coffee and brunch. Dunstan House, fifty-five metres east, is a nearby bistro option. The Old Post Office, one block off Sunderland on Blyth Street, brings restaurant, bar and garden service to the former post-office building. Olivers Restaurant, in the 1869 Victoria Store, is another Sunderland Street dinner option. Three Peaks Coffee is about three minutes through the village. Monte Christo Café, six hundred metres west on Sunderland Street, carries the name of Jean Désiré Féraud, and Monte Christo Winery is a short drive away on Springvale Road.

The Bannockburn wineries

About thirty minutes' drive south of Clyde, over the Clyde Dam crossing and through Cromwell, the Bannockburn cluster sits on Felton Road and the surrounding hills. Felton Road, founded in 1991 and Demeter biodynamic-certified since 2010, is the gravity-fed solar-powered estate that built the modern reputation of Central Otago pinot noir; cellar-door tastings are by reservation only, Monday to Friday. Mt Difficulty, founded in 1992 by the "Gang of Four" Bannockburn growers, opened its current restaurant and cellar door in February 2003 with a sweeping Kawarau-gorge view. Terra Sancta, on Felton Road since 1991 and the originals as Olssen's, is the single-block / single-vineyard pinot specialist James Suckling has called "perhaps the greatest pinot noir I have ever tasted in New Zealand." Carrick, certified-organic, twenty-three and a half hectares, runs a restaurant and a casual Glasshouse overlooking the Bannockburn Inlet.

Where to stay in the village

Clyde on Sunderland is a beautifully restored character home at 46 Sunderland Street, in the original heart of the gold-rush precinct. It sleeps up to eight guests across four bedrooms, with two bathrooms, two lounges, a large fully equipped kitchen, e-bike charging, four included off-street car parks and a dining table for eight. This home books as one private booking and is across the street from partner Duo Cafe, about seventy metres from bike hire, and close to Clyde's restaurants and cafes, the rail trailhead and the Lake Dunstan foreshore.

If you have a question about the village, a walking route, or a dinner booking, feel free to get in touch.