Tranz Scenic Railway

We were up Monday at 5:45 am after some poor sleep. Diwali celebration deconstruction was very noisy until late into the night, but we were glad to be up and on to our next adventure. We were out the door by 6:45, walking to the train station, stopping at a NZ version of McDonalds for a quick take away breakfast. Don’t judge. (FYI McCafe’s spinach and feta muffin was yummy; the chorizo cheese roll was, in Andy’s words “crap.”)

The train departed Auckland station at 7:50 am for our nearly 12-hour ride. Ann has been amused that our travel agent has booked everything as Mr. and Mrs. Schulte. (and Andy has been bemused...)

Our train consisted of 4 cars with 4-foot high windows. Two of the cars contained passenger seats, one was a café car and the one right behind the front engine was an open-air viewing platform. It was a beautiful sunny day with a cool wind, and Ann found herself wanting to be out on that first car, despite the wafting diesel smell from the engine. The landscape has a way of teasing you, making you think that just around the next bend is going to be yet another spectacular view that can’t be missed. We saw plenty of these views from our window seat, but being outside made it much more exciting and made for better picture taking.

Inside in the seating cars a chime would sporadically sound and that meant to put on your headphones for interesting facts about what you were seeing from your window. We learned about small mining towns, old train trellises, active volcano eruptions, cultural clashes and actual clashes over land ownership and development, and power stations that now run on Indonesian coal. According to the lady in the headphones, we covered 681 kilometers, crossed 352 bridges, and went through 14 tunnels.

We saw a lot of beautiful range land.

In addition to lots of birds (including pheasants and pukekos), we saw many many paddocks full of sheep, lambs, cows, calves, and even some deer and two llamas...

Deer in the back 

Sheep - we saw about a gazillion sheep

The train took us through Tongariro National Park, New Zealand's first national park (one of 14 now), recognised as one of the 27 World Heritage Sites. The park includes several sacred Māori sites and three active volcanoes, Ruapehu, Ngauruhoe and Tongariro. We only got pictures of Tongariro and Ngauruhoe.

Tongariro

Ngaurhoe

Stopped briefly in Taihape to check out train parts

The rivers and gorges were stunning as well. We’d be standing on the observation deck, look down, and there would be a drop so far to the river it would take your breath away.

We also had an unscheduled stop for an hour in the town of Otorohanga. A car had struck a bridge abutment, and the train had to stop and wait for a safety check before crossing. Passengers were able to get off the train and walk in to town.  The walk and stretch were very welcome, in spite of the delay. An added bonus was a pull apart bacon cheese roll acquired at  a local bakery that greatly assuaged Andy's disappointment of the morning chorizo roll.

Upon arrival in Wellington we were embraced by a seventy kilometer per hour breeze, a regular local windbag who had much to say the next day too.