TRAINS - EPISODE 3

PART ONE


OK, after that interlude we're back to trains.

Last time I talked of my earliest memory of train travel. Today is my latest. Yesterday in fact when I went by train from Wellington to Paraparaumu on the Waikanae line.

This is a great little trip made all the greater by the use of my Gold Card which saves me from paying the $12 each way fare.

The train goes through 3 tunnels and bypasses Johnsonville. Imagine  a tunnel from Petone to Lake Ferry that could bypass Moera and Wainuiomata.

As Richard surmised at the pub on Saturday trains do in fact travel behind houses and businesses giving the traveller views of backyards.

 Interesting, but you had to be there.

There are other interesting things to see from the train.

I wonder what the crank handle is for

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PART TWO

After a nice walk around the War Memorial Gardens (post to come) I walked down to the train station and took a train to Upper Hutt. This is as far as that train was going.

After Petone and until Silverstream the Hutt looks a bit impoverished. From Silverstream to Trentham there are bigger and better kept houses and gardens but after Trentham it reverts. It's all a bit sad really.

I had some lunch at Upper Hutt and waited 27 minutes for the next train.
Outside the station there is a massive sculpture that's worthy of being a Henry Moore./

Good on Upper Hutt for having this there. It gives soul to the place. I like sculpture.

On the way back and passing Trentham racecourse I spied my Aunt Ella's house.

Aunt Ella's old house

We used to visit Aunt Ella in the 1950s and 1960s back in the days when a trip from Wellington to Trentham (Upper Hutt Valley) was a big adventure and a day out.
Aunt Ella was probably quite nice but as a kid I thought she was a bit fierce. She was, as they called it in those days, a 'spinster'. In modern times she would probably be labelled with a LGBT tag.
The house looks to have been done up a bit but structurally it's the same. Aunt Ella used to have a large section around the house with stables and sheds including an interesting farrier or blacksmith's shed. It is just next to the racecourse and she was some sort of official at the racing club. Nowadays the land has been filled with other houses.


It was raining in the Hutt and still raining when I got back to Wellington so I took a bus home and will potter about here until I meet Geoff and The Old Girl at Fratelli restaurant in Courtenay Place.

That's all for trains today but we will do another post tomorrow.

**Thank you for caring**




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