

This panoramic image is from the rocky terrain of the
Rock and Pillar range in the Straith Taieri district,an hours drive inland
from Dunedin.The main township in the district is Middlemarch.
Extra Information
Middlemarch is a small town (population 300) within the limits of Dunedin
city. It lies some 80km to the west of the city centre, at the foot of the
Rock and Pillar Range of hills in the broad Strath-Taieri valley, through
which flows the middle reaches of the Taieri River.
Middlemarch is mainly a service town for the local farming community. It is
the terminus of the Taieri Gorge Railway, and the start of the Otago
Central Rail Trail.
Originally known as Blair Taieri, there is a popular misconception that the
town is named for George Eliot's novel Middlemarch. The true origin of the
name is from the obsolete English term "march" meaning a boundary - in this
case a middle area between two rivers. As with many places in and close to
the Maniototo area, its name was probably influenced by the Northumberland
ancestry of early surveyor John Turnbull Thompson (there is a Middle March
region in Northumberland, centred around the town of Otterburn).