March 6 - Wellington to Auckland by Train - 641 km

The train system in New Zealand is far more developed than ours.  The commuter train services around their large cities are especially well used.  The railway station in Wellington is busy to a point just below organized chaos during rush hours.

NZ has a few long distance train services, the longest being the "Overlander" which runs between Wellington and Auckland.  Its a 12 hour ride, starting at 7:25 in the morning.  One of the advantages of the backpackers hostel we were in is that it is just across the street from the railway station, so it was easy to pack up and get there early (in light rain, of course).  The train staff have obviously done this before as they very efficient, even at 7 a.m. on a Sunday morning.

Off we went.  Leaving Wellington isn't too exciting as we are often below grade in cuts or tunnels.  Outside the city we get into plains before Palmerston North.  Most of the country is used for grazing.  At Palmerston North we switch from a diesel to electric locomotive and head for the mountains.  We travel through mountainous terrain for the next third of the trip, although there are always patches of grazing and farmland everywhere.

The electric locomotive, and the viewing car at the rear.












The crew annouces viaducts (trestles) or other features, so we crowd into an outside viewing platform between the baggage car and first passenger car for photos.  So, most of these photos are of river valleys as we cross the viaducts.  Sorry about the quality of the photos - my camera can't handle the train movement and one or two were shot through the window.

You might notice I am able to more easily arrange photos on the blog now.  This is due to there being better Internet connections in the big cities.













We went through many, many towns along the way.  They were pretty typical NZ and pretty typical of what I've shown you earlier.  For the train buffs, one of the interesting features of the trip is the Raurimu Sprial - a spiral tunnel used to drop elevation quickly as we went north from National Park.
Some of the towns we went through were ones we had bicycled earlier, National Park for example.

 This was the most spectacular trestle we crossed.  I wasn't able to lean out far enough to show you how high we were.

You'll notice how green the countryside looks in all of my photos.  Our impression was that it was 'greener' than normal, due to all that rain I've been whining and sniveling about.

Here's a map of the train trip.  If you ever have an opportunity to take it I'd recommend it.  You get to relax instead of driving and you should have your head read if you are on a bicycle!

We're in Auckland until we leave.  We made it easily from the train station to our hostel.  I'll put up some Auckland stuff in the next day or so.