Today is the 150th anniversary
of the opening of the first
railway line, between Christchurch and Ferrymead. To mark the occasion Steam Incorporated operated a series of
excursions between their depot at Paekakariki and Wellington. We decided to
take a ride and have a picnic lunch on the beach.
Our locomotive was Ja1271
and the carriages built in 1908. The lights have been converted from gas.
This is the depot at Paekakariki
and one of their "heritage diesels". We don’t normally like diesels but this one
is so clean and shiny that we may make an exception just once.
The plant is about 10 years old, it self seeded in the front garden and I transferred it to the back. It's now about 2 metres tall and the seed pods another metre. I was bemoaning the fact that it had never flowered and then I noticed a commotion of tui and realised my wish had been granted!
3 comments:
Now Andy's texts about steam trains makes sense. Wow, I would have loved to have been there - coal smoke and ice-cream: my favourite flavours!
And I am intrigued to hear about your flax flowers
(I remember when the bush lived in your front garden). A bush that Elwin and I dug up from Ashley St when we left Rangiora, has sent up huge flower spikes. We lived in Rangiora for 8 years and the bush has been here in Ashley for 13 years but I have never known it to flower before.
Looks brilliant!
Gorgeous flowers! And I'm very impressed with how shiny all the trains were. Well done those chaps and all that. :) Is that the same train place we went on Fathers' Day? The carriage interior looked vaguely familiar...
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