A holiday in paradise; well the Coromandels actually...

Well the first half of the employer enforced two week holiday has been completed satisfactorily with not a galah in sight at any time; head and shoulders are clean...

To the east of Auckland is the Coromandel Peninsula. A two hour drive can reach most parts of it, three hours can see you in Colville in the very north end of it. About two thirds of the way up is the township of Coromandel. Well you might expect that I guess. It is an area with a history based on timber extraction and gold mining and in latter years strong resistance to timber extraction and mining of any kind. Over the hill is the Whangapoua Harbour and beaches. So we chose Te Rerenga as home base; a nice quiet little spot; B&B.

One of the major "attractions" in Coromandel is the Driving Creek Railway. Like all good things, this one also has a good story behind it. GO follow up the link above; read it from the source. I had a sub-atomic sized contribution, one which I doubt any of the major players would remember. About two months after Brickell bought the property a group of us went down to help out planting trees around the entrance. I think there were about three or four that I managed to get in the ground before the alchohol kicked in and I spent the rest of the afternoon in a very pleasant haze.

Anyway, this is the trip around by Mrs p and me the other day...

The carpark starts the tour.


The gradient to the sheds in the background is about 1 in 25, about the average for the full length of the railway.




You can actually see the "Eyefull Tower" from the bottom of the railway. As you can see from some of the following images the weather was misty, drizzly, and I can't find a decent frame showing it... From bottom to top is over 110 metres, roughly 375 feet, with distance travelled on track about 3000m.


The lower terminus is shops,
workshops, and facilities
along with a statuary. (Oh, and sorry about the lean on that last frame; the consequence of trying to take a low angle using the moveable LCD screen on the camera instead of "getting down to it"...


The track is a marvel of amateur engineering. The DRC home site covers the whole topic; very well indeed. It includes two "spirals" (which are almost impossible to photograph) and three "switchbacks".








The last switchback is suspended over the edge of the main ridge. I can testify to the fact that at the end of the level, it is some 10m above ground at least.

How does a switchback work? This gives the idea. We are about to head down to the right, and up to the left you will see the next train waiting for us to clear the switch.

You can see a red back in the carriage ahead of me. It belonged to the taller of these two; among the more interesting of the travellers on the train. I wondered if they were visiting this happy little chappie who I found sitting in a quiet corner at the Eyefull Tower.

Actually, I have always liked Barry Brickell's work. He has a sense of humour that I enjoy, and it comes through in different and quirky ways... like this - at the top of a 1.2m high (4 feet for Americans) pot in the statuary.

And that was just the first morning...