Having been to the Zoo yesterday it was now my turn to pick where we went, my unsurprising choice was the Museum Of Transport And Technology, our journey into Auckland was pretty similar to the day before as both MOTAT and the Zoo are located on the fringes of Western Springs park. The site of the museum was the original pumping station for Auckland's water supply, the original beam engines are still in place, these can still function but were not running today. The beam engines are a work of art in them selves and an architect has clearly enjoyed integrating them into the building.
The museum also included a Trekka, this was an offroad vehicle built in New Zealand using the running gear from a Skoda Octavia, this has just enough local content to avoid high import taxes in the 1970’s, it defiantly has a Land Roveresque look about it.
Included in the car displays was a Morris Marina Estate, the display seemed to spend far to much time Marina bashing, also included was a BMC 1100/1300, at one point this was apparently the most popular car in the New Zealand. We also found a cutaway Morris 1000 that Joanna took a shine to.
In the vehicle hall there was also the transformer that is used to power the museums tram way, the museum has a collection of historic trams, including one from Dunedin, until around the 1950’s New Zealand had relatively good public transport with many rail lines in passenger use and also many cities had tramways, before the private car and motorbus took over. The museum has two sites and a tramway runs between these, here is a selection of photos from our two rides on the tram way.
The second site includes a collection of airplanes, some of these served in the New Zealand airforce while others were invented and built in New Zealand. This also included a couple of flying boats. We spent some time in the exhibition about Jean Batten who broke the record for the quickest flight between Great Britain and Australia.
The next day we spend some time at Takapuna market on the North Shore followed by a picnic with Stuart, Deirdre and some of their family, followed by a walk around the coast line from Takapuna to Milford.
Dog Watching!
Stuart and Deidre
Until Next Time!
