Train Trip to Wellington

On the first week of the school holidays we took the whole family for a short vacation to Wellington. The first leg of the journey was the Overlander train down country as far as you can go by land. Starting (30 minutes late) from Hamilton, the train was pulled by a standard diesel-electric locomotive.
We stopped at National Park for a meal (and the south-bound & north-bound train crews swap over), the very friendly driver allowed me to take the kids up into the cab of the locomotive. They thought that was pretty cool... In this day and age of paranoia and over-zealous security around public transport, it was nice to get the chance to experience the drivers view.

As a bonus on this trip, when we pulled into Ohakune , a genuine, old-fashioned, steam powered locomotive was hitched to the front of our train for the trip to Feilding. The smell of burning coal and the clouds of smoke and steam added to the experience.
The train chugged along puffing like the Hogwarts Express. There was an open observation platform on the baggage car from which we could take photos, but really the people in the worst place to enjoy the steam train experience are actually the passengers... People driving on the road alongside the tracks probably had better views.
The steamer was taken off the front at Feilding and we carried on by diesel-electric to Wellington. The whole journey took about 11 hours. Thanks to Helen's preparation of activity materials for the trip, the kids were quite happy the whole time. In fact quite a few fellow travelers remarked to us how amazed they were at our kids good behaviour. Most comment started with "My kids would have been bouncing off the walls...". Makes you feel all warm inside.

We rolled into Wellington about 9pm and a quick taxi ride later we were in our hotel. The kids were exhausted and just crashed into bed and were sound asleep in minutes.