Found In Lumsden

A welcome message from Roar Cafe in Lumsden, Murihiku, Southland

On our way to Queenstown to catch up with family, we called into Lumsden Roar Cafe.

Another name for the cafe could well be Emporium of Endearments. I said to Robert, “You’ve been called Honey, Darling and Babe in the space of three minutes.”

He said, “Happens to me all the time.”

To be fair, I was also addressed thus.

We loved it there – had a coffee and a macaroon. Totally, thoroughly recommend. The owner is friendly, bubbly and … full of endearments.

I’d be tempted to describe the decor and atmosphere of Roar Cafe as an example of clean, streamlined, modern rural. The feeling you get when you walk in there is of a creative and bright country cafe with appealing, slightly edgy touches.

This deer head reminds me very much of Dad’s deer head trophy, adorned with antlers from a stag he shot in the Longwoods. It seems to have the same amount of points. From memory, Dad’s one was a 23-pointer. When I was a child, it hung on the wall just inside our front door from where it eyed any visitors. However, as most people who came to our house entered via the back door, it was only Dr Elder on a home visit who was ever confronted by the deer head’s glassy, baleful gaze. Being a tall man he was able to greet the stag eye-to-eye, each time conveying his respects by way of a nod and formal greeting.

When we moved to our second home, Mum made sure the deer head was banished to the garage.

These days the esteemed deer head can be found in the Gore Deerstalkers Meeting Rooms.

On previous visits to this town, I’ve called into Lumsden’s Five Fingers Craft shop with my sister. There aren’t many of these humble, unpretentious hand-knitting and home-made craft shops around any more. This is one of the best. As is the one in Tuatapere, even farther south. My sisters and I possess interior heat-seeking missiles when it comes to shops like these. We blame our mother.