After leaving Macraes, we drove along Macraes Road toward Middlemarch and along the way we passed this side road. I glanced at the sign and realised we’d found an old friend .. Butter and Egg Road. Nigel had photographed this same spot when we were in the area in 2009! 🙂
Click on either photo to enlarge.
From a description of a Cromwell Museum booklet: ‘Discover Macraes Through the Butter and Egg Trail’ I found how this road came to be named (most proud of my achievement!). Quote: “A 28 page booklet including many black and white photographs travelling on the Butter and Egg Road which derives its name from this being the most convenient route by which the pioneering womenfolk of Moonlight carried their butter, eggs and other saleable produce to market.”
You can see Nigel’s 2009 photos of the same location in this 2018 post: Butter and Egg Road. Back then I didn’t know how the road got its name and down in the Comments section fellow bloggers shared a few ideas!
If you want to see this on Google Maps it’s under ‘Butter And Egg Road, Moonlight’. Yep, this sub-district of Waitaki is named Moonlight!
Text by Liz, photos by Nigel; Exploring Colour (2021)
Exploring Colour 
I love stories like this, Liz! What a fascinating bit of history you learned by searching for the origin of its name!
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I was excited to find the reason for the road name, hadn’t expected to find anything! I was simply trying to ascertain which council district the road was in and there in my search results was this info about the road name 😀
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Wonderful what you can find!!
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Another interesting jaunt out with you and NIgel! I did have a look at Google Maps and the area looks a bit harsh on the satellite view. I’d say those pioneer women needed all the help they could get!
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You’re so right! This is very rugged country and many less experienced miners died in the old days. Harsh conditions, rivers suddenly flooding, blizzards .. so much could go wrong. It was crazy hard for the women looking after their families, unimaginable!
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I’m not surprised to learn that, Liz. I can’t imagine that too many of them actually got rich, either.
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The title, before I read the last word, made me think of a favorite albeit non-native wildflower, “Butter and Eggs”.
It’s a nice story how the name came to be. I like when a street has a name with meaning rather than just a name some developer came up with.
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Yes! it’d be nice to have them growing around the base of the pole that has the road sign on 😀
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Love this road name!
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Yes we do too – ever since we first came across it!
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All sorts of interesting names, “Moonlight” is cool, too. And I remember from school, that “Middlemarch” was a famous novel by George Eliot, although I’ve never read it.
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When we were in the pub at Macraes I saw an old-time portrait on the wall of a bloke with the surname “Moonlight” so I’m guessing that’s how this sub-district got it’s name. Lucky he had such a nice surname! I’m aware of “Middlemarch” too –but I haven’t read it either!
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