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Spirit of the Antipodes Day 11

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Today was spent sedately touring 5 gardens which were part of the Taranaki Garden Festival.  Our coaches and Garden Festival tour guides collected us at 9am. We learnt a bit about the background to each of the gardens we would visit as we travelled.  The day was cool, cloudy and slightly damp but as we reached the first garden, Villa Verde, in the area called Bell Block, the drizzle ceased and there was no need for the umbrellas and raincoats we had brought along. The first garden was a gem; a beautifully manicured and curated one acre property, with a stunning house that had been moved there in 2001, and renovated. The vegetable garden was immaculate and the fruit trees neatly espaliered. The flower beds featured many English country garden varieties and azaleas were in Just down the lane, we discovered another treasure, Riverlea. Similarly, this featured a lovely house which had been relocated and restored and the garden consisted of many rooms. This was a bigger garden whic...
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Spirit of the Antipodes Day 10

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How many photos do you need of one spectacular mountain?   The answer is, as many as you can get before it disappears from view.  This morning we said farewell to our unique chalet-style accommodation in the ski fields town of Ohakune, at the foot of Mt Ruapehu, which was looking  particularly magnificent in the morning light with its dusting of snow.  As the railway line twisted and turned we were afforded views of Ruapehu from many different aspects, so the first part of the trip was spent dashing from one side of the carriage to the other to capture this and other scenic views.  While I was doing this in the relative comfort of our favourite old wooden carriage, Wallsy was again collecting smuts and braving tunnels out on the observation platform.  We were soon at the Tangiwai Viaduct over the Whangaehu River which was the scene of the Christmas Eve rail disaster in 1953 where some 151 lives were lost, and Mt Raupehu was lost from sight.  The next s...
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Spirit of the Antipodes Day 9

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Today was an on-train day. It was to take us all day to travel from Tauranga to our overnight stop in Ohakune.  Having loaded our luggage onto the coaches, we all walked the 300m to meet our train on the Tauranga water front. Today the diesel locomotives would haul our train all the way to Hamilton to be reunited with the steam engine, which had spent the day running tourist shuttles to National Park yesterday.   We were away on time at 9am and I settled in to listen to my audio book as I watched the coastal scenery flash by. The listening was frequently interrupted by the train whistle, which the driver was very keen on sounding at great length, much to the delight of the trackside watchers, and the horror of the livestock along the way.  The first attraction of the day was the 8.8 km long Kaimai tunnel connecting the Port of Tauranga with the rest of the North Island by passing directly through the Kaimai Range. No longer open to passenger trains, it is only the Glenbro...
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