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Wharemauku Stream mouth at Raumati Beach In this picture, the Wharemauku Stream reaches the sea at Raumati Beach, with Kapiti Island in the background. As a little child, I spent so much time playing around here. I never was too keen on going in the water, but building sand castles was incredible fun. |
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Wharemauku Stream near its mouth I took this photo from a wooden bridge over the Wharemauku Stream at Raumati Beach. It is essentially looking the the other direction from the previous photo of the stream's mouth. |
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Ride-on railway at Raumati Marine Gardens, 1 The ride-on railway at Raumati Marine Gardens was one of my favourite things in the whole world when I was little. The right-hand bridge and track are new since I was last in the Gardens. There used to only be one loop, one bridge (the left-hand one; it felt like a viaduct when I was 4!), and one tunnel. There are now two of each. The left bridge runs to the station; the right one is on a curve and leads to one of the tunnels. The gates are shut when trains aren't operating so that people can't attempt to walk over the bridges and injure themselves. |
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Ride-on railway at Raumati Marine Gardens, 2 The bridges as viewed from the side, showing the curve of the bridge that was on the right-hand side of the previous photo. The track under the bridges was also new to me. |
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Ride-on railway at Raumati Marine Gardens, 3 On the other side of the layout from the bridges and station is this little yard. The track branching off to a dead-end by a garage on the back left is where visitors load their trains. There used to be a turntable here when I was little, but it has now been removed, I imagine as a response to vandalism. The track on the centre-right in a cutting was new to me. |
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Raumati Beach as viewed from the main entrance of Marine Gardens This picture is looking east up Raumati Road from the main path into Marine Gardens. When I was little, the very first shop on the right was a grocery store run by Nan and Grandad. My old primary school isn't far up the road. I remember walking from school along Raumati Road, up the path this photo was taken on, and through Marine Gardens to the Raumati Pools for school swimming. I can't believe that was 10+ years ago. |
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My childhood home Memories. So many memories. |
I'd like to say more about that last picture; I'd like to reminisce. I spent nearly eleven years of my life in that house; since then, I have lived on average only 1.2 years in an individual spot. The window on the left was from my bedroom. I never wanted to leave there. I remember when we painted my bedroom yellow for, I think, my fifth birthday. The house itself used to be a light yellow, creamish colour, but we repainted it the current colour a few years before we sold it. The fence across the front never used to be there, and on the right used to be a cylindrical shaped tree that I thought was really cool. Mum had it chopped down before we sold the place so that the spare room (window on the right) could have more light, a move I opposed! And let me just say that I am MASSIVELY disappointed by the fact that the letterbox is white again. It was white, and then I painted it bright yellow. It was my pride and joy. We never had to tell people our address, we just had to give them our street name and say "the house with the yellow letterbox". I wouldn't be surprised if our neighbours also used it as a marker! Oh well. At least it still has the numbers we bought for it.
And now we move slightly up the coast to Paraparaumu. It and Raumati essentially blur together.
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Kapiti Island from Paraparaumu Beach This photo is taken from the narrow strip of grassy parkland between Marine Parade and the beach itself at Paraparaumu Beach. |
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Kapiti Island and I Me standing on a picnic table in the parkland. |
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Paraparaumu Beach, the town This photo is taken looking in the opposite direction to the first one of the beach, looking across Marine Parade to part of the town. I have a photo of me when I was three in the small grassy depression in the foreground. Everything has changed around it, but if you took a photo from that angle again, it would look exactly the same. Why didn't I do that with 20 year old me for contrast? I don't know! |
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Grandad and I A photo I took of Grandad and I at Paraparaumu railway station just prior to catching the train. The two previous attempts to take a photo of us were bloody awful, but this one I think is remarkably good. |
I did proceed north from Paraparaumu to Otaihanga, but none of my photos from there are really anything special. Were it not for the evening sunlight, I would have been able to get some nice photos of the Waikanae River. Oh well, next time! So instead, because I can, here are photos of trains!
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The Overlander at Paraparaumu station The Overlander (Wellington to Auckland) about to leave Paraparaumu railway station at roughly 8:30am on 7 July 2007. This was unfortunately the best shot of the train that I got. I think the "Overlander" logo on the side of the carriages looks like really bad graffiti. Oh, and remember my photos of the classic red carriages? These carriages here are rebuilds of 1940s red carriages. This is illustrative of the total lack of investment in passenger train travel in New Zealand. No wonder the Overlander was nearly cancelled last year! Those who have repeatedly renovated the old carriages deserve a medal though, for keeping the carriages at a high standard of presentability. |
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Former rail yard Here we see a footbridge from a car park over the North Island Main Trunk to the platform of Paraparaumu railway station. When I was a child, that car park was a small railway yard with a goods shed. I suspect its disappearance was a result of the Beard era that ravaged New Zealand's railways in the late 1990s. All that's left is a crossing loop beside the main platform. |
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Electric multiple unit at Paraparaumu station An EM/ET class electric multiple unit stopped at the bay platform of Paraparaumu railway station at 8:30am on 7 July 2007 prior to returning to Wellington. The long-distance passenger trains may be lacking, but Wellington has a very good commuter passenger network. To the right can be seen the sign for Coastlands, the main shopping centre on the Kapiti Coast. |
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DX-hauled freight train arrives at Paekakariki, 1 A freight train from Wellington approaches Paekakariki at around midday on 7 July 2007, hauled by DX class diesel-electric locomotives 5074 and 5016. |
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DX-hauled freight train arrives at Paekakariki, 2 The freight train charges into Paekakariki station. |
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DX-hauled freight train arrives at Paekakariki, 3 The train passes through Paekakariki station. On the right midground can be seen the Paekakariki station building, home to the museum from which I posted some pictures two days ago. In the background, between the DXs and the station, stabled EM/ET sets can be seen in the yard. |
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Multiple unit at Paraparaumu station, 1 An EM/ET multiple unit at Paraparaumu railway station around 4pm on 7 July 2007. It is viewed from across the car park that is situated on the site of the old yard and goods shed. |
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Multiple unit at Paraparaumu station, 2 The same multiple unit is seen stopped at the through platform of Paraparaumu station. This picture is taken from the nearby level crossing. |
And that's it for my photos from New Zealand!
