Railway to the Eyefull Tower

Another bright start; we've been really lucky with the weather considering it's going into winter here.

An early start as we had a longish drive over the Coromandel Penisular to get to Coromandel in time for the 10:15 train, with a brief stop to admire one of the many lovely views:

We made it with minutes to spare and bought our tickets.

Barbara had read about this railway line (http://www.drivingcreekrailway.co.nz) in some of the guide books we'd bought in England, and was obviously excited about the trip:

Once we were all seated in our little narrow gauge railcar:

and our driver/commentator had checked our tickets:

we were off, rattling up the narrow track into tunnels:

over bridges with frightening drops and through dense rain forest at what seemed to be great speed, but probably wasn't quite as fast as it seemed:

One of the more spectacular engineering feats (the whole thing is incredible) is a bridge over a deep gorge:

it is not just an ordinary rail bridge, but a double-decker:

The line twists and turns, goes around in sharp loops, up 1 in 14 gradients, and where the hillside is too steep even for that, it zig-zags up the side of the hill so that one moment the train is going one direction, it stops momentarily while the points are changed, then sets off uphill again, and we're looking down twenty feet to the track we were on just seconds previously:

All the way, there are interesting items of pottery to amuse and entertain:

and unusual construction techniques such as these restraining walls made of hundreds of wine bottles:

The story of this railway is that Barry Brickell, an artist and potter, but also a self taught civil and mechanical engineer, constructed this amazing railway virtually single handed over several decades to get clay and firewood down the hillside for his pottery.

When the costs of building the railway became significantly greater than the return he was getting on his pottery, his bank manager suggested he should open it to the public. It now carries typically 35,000 passengers annually, more than most of the Rail New Zealand lines!

Up and up we went. At one point the line suddenly turned away from the hillside and started going out into the void:

Hoping the brakes were working, we again waited a few seconds for another points change:

before setting off for the terminus of the trip, the Eyefull Tower:

Ten minutes there to enjoy an explanation as to how the railway came into being, and the views:

then it was back to the trains for the descent to civilisation:

All in all, a very worthwhile stop – highly recommended.

On south down the Pacific Coast Highway again to the Waiau Falls. Not quite as spectacular as we might have hoped, but we got a photo there anyway:

And on the way back down the unsurfaced road, we stopped in at the Waiau Waterworks (http://www.waiauwaterworks.co.nz); a fun park with all manner of entertaining watery creations. This huge pendulum clock is water powered:

and amusing things to read and see:

And animals including some alpacas in various states, alert:

awake (just):

comfortable:

Then, with our sightseeing finished for the day the weather changed to miserable, which didn't matter in the slightest as we only had to drive to Manukau (near Auckland) to camp for the next two nights in preparation for leaving New Zealand.

written by  Saros on May 24, 2009 from Manukau City, New Zealand
from the travel blog: The Hairy Animal 2009 World Road Trip
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