17.2.11 The Train



Auckland Station



Bill on the Overlander





We had chosen our hotel to be so near the station that we could roll out of bed and into the train, and that is very much what happened.  6.50am saw us cosily settled on the Overlander, due to be our home for twelve hours as we traversed North Island from top to bottom.  The train, an elegant pale blue narrow gauge with veteran but comfortable rolling stock, had a panoramic observation lounge to the rear and a small open viewing platform near the front.  It also had a tendency to rock and roll at awkward moments, necessitating care in order to avoid cannoning headfirst into the laps of our multinational fellow passengers. Or headfirst down the toilet – narrow escape there.  The reason for this became apparent when we stopped for lunch and were able to observe from close quarters the wooden railway sleepers decoratively serrated into small slivers to which the bolts clung with more determination than certainty.

National Park

The first impression of New Zealand’s landscape is that it is very green.  The second is that there’s hardly anybody here.  It’s very obvious that these islands, roughly the size of Britain, have a population, at 4 million, which only represents about 80% of Scotland’s.  There is no doubt it is beautiful – rolling green swards, occasional clusters of cream wooden board houses - a bit like those we saw in Virginia, but usually single storey.  Interestingly, many were built on stilts, of metal, wood or in one case, teetering on haphazard piles of breeze blocks.  And then the mountains, sweeping up green and tree covered at first, giving way to the blue, cloud-wrapped volcanic peaks of the National Park.  Curving viaducts across dizzy heights, chalk cliffs carved by a twisting, white water river, sheep, goats, sleek cattle, clouds of white butterflies, black swans, thin necked herons.  Pine trees, palm trees, eucalyptus, their silver leaves trembling, tall poplars marching in neat formation over soft folds of green landscape, gorse, nodding purple buddleia, convolvulus twining down the embankments, starred with pink blossom.  And pampas grass.  An awful lot of pampas grass.  Narrow gorges crammed jungle-style with vegetation of every type, wide empty grassy planes stretching into the distance, domed by blue skies punctuated with small puffy clouds.  As we got nearer the south, there was more evidence of habitation – tree-lined streets in townships, one called Bunnythorpe.  If you ever go to there, next to Danny’s Diner painted in eye-popping scarlet and black, you will find the Bunnythorpe Tavern (images of Playboy float through the mind) and then Bunnythorpe Auto Wrecking Services (visions of pink ninja bunnies hard at work). 



Nearing Wellington

 More mountains, some tunnels, and then suddenly Kapiti Island floating in the glittering Tasman Sea, and South Island shimmers blue and hazy in the distance.  Then the bustle of Wellington, a crowded station platform, and my cousin Susan waiting, a familiar face and a warm welcome.