Taieri which it would then traverse from south to north as the main route to Central Otago. The gorge presented formidable obstacles to which the existing bridges and tunnels are now picturesque testimony. The line reached Middlemarch in April 1891 spurring the township's development. It was extended to Hyde by 16 July 1894 where it had a similar effect. The line's eventual terminus was Cromwell in the Upper Clutha catchment but it did not arrive there until 1921. To develop Middlemarch the March Creek had been diverted and for many years the township was regularly flooded until channel work on the creek ameliorated the problem. A Presbyterian preacher covered the Strath Taieri district in 1886. Anglican and Roman Catholic churches were built in 1901 and a handsome church of the local schist stone was completed for the Presbyterians in 1906. Gold mining in nearby areas such as Macraes Flat and Nenthorn buoyed up the development of the Strath Taieri and its townships but that stalled in the twentieth century. In the 1880s rabbits became a plague and it was only by strenuous efforts this was contained by the 1940s. Runs were broken up for closer settlement in 1894 and later but the valley remained thinly populated. In 1914 there was a move to have the Strath Taieri Riding transferred to the Maniototo County which was unsuccessful. In the 1930s attempts to get a water supply for Middlemarch were also unsuccessful. However an electricity supply to Middlemarch was made operative on 28 July 1939. On 4 June 1943 the derailment of the Dunedin Cromwell Express on the outskirts of Hyde cost twenty-one lives. Because the accident was attributed to the negligence of the engine driver the government became liable for more than £200,000 in compensation. The modern equivalent would be several million dollars. Postwar development was slow and while farm production increased the population expanded only a little and latterly declined. As the 20th century advanced this large and apparently empty country maintained the character and atmosphere of a pioneering district. Middlemarch could seem to visitors like a set for 'High Noon'. The plateau country to the south, with its fantastic rock formations, tors, heightens the impression of antiquity and otherworldliness which inspired artistic responses. Up until 1948, Antimony was mined at Hindon. The celebrated New Zealand painter Colin McCahon as a schoolboy in 1936 had what he later described as