Daily Photo – Vintage Austin Truck in Middlemarch

Following the need to head out of town for a few hours, it wasn’t long before I found myself leaving the settlement of Outram and rolling along State Highway 87 towards Middlemarch. It’s one of those roads that drifts quietly into the hinterland, leaving town life behind as it follows the Taieri River through wide, empty plains and low, weathered hills, where the mountain ranges do most of the talking and you find yourself driving a little slower without quite knowing why.

As I approached Middlemarch and chugged past the outskirts of town, I came across an unusually large gathering of vehicles near the local rugby club. Every available space along the road and in nearby paddocks had been taken, cars and 4WDs of every description were lined up and separated by hay bales acting as makeshift road markers. Propped up against them were large signs announcing the “Strath Taieri A & P Show 2026”.

For a moment I considered calling in and wandering around, but then thought better of it. There’s only so much farming talk you can bluff your way through before someone asks a question you can’t answer, and I wasn’t in the mood to be found out.

Several streets later I came across the local museum which proudly displays (and quite rightly may I add) New Zealand’s only submarine and I thought about stopping by, but it appeared to be closed. Instead, I settled for a quiet stroll around the local train station where I could wander about without the risk of being drawn into a conversation I wasn’t equipped to have.