Middlemarch, New Zealand
From Queenstown.net.nz
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 Terminal station 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).
[edit] Getting there
Glenorchy Air provides flights to Middlemarch from Queenstown and Glenorchy • more info
[edit] References
This article uses material from Wikipedia, "Middlemarch, New Zealand"
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