Monterey Park

On Friday we had warning of a severe tropical storm. Auckland residents were advised to tie down trampolines and not drive unless absolutely necessary. We concluded that the large trampoline would go no where, but decided to put the small trampoline and the paddling pool into the garage.

The storm hit in the night. The wind was strong and the rain lashed down. In the morning it was still windy and raining, but not sufficient to prevent Ian driving Zoe and myself over to 'Farmers' to see Diago and Dora. These are character on a childrens TV and are very popular out here. The characters proved to daunting for Zoe and after a brief photo session and coffee we returned home.

Dora

After lunch the storm had changed to intermittent drizzle and Ian decided to take Zoe, Mum and I to Monterey Park - Motor Museum and Model World. The park is a reasonably large area of land on the other side of the harbour bridge. In the centre of the park is a good sized pond. Around it is a walkway and a miniature railway track. Spread around the area were buildings housing different model exhibits. First we went into the car museum. Zoe was interested in the cars with side raising doors like the DeLorean DMC-12 (Back to the Future).

From here we went to the model railway pavillion. This was a fantastic HO gauge railway, divided into seasons. It can only be described as elegant.

Next followed a trip on the miniature railway. The carriages were particularly good and the 'jouney' was made interesting. There were automatic barriers across the paths.

We walked on to the outside model village. Their were Auckland building which we recognised, such as the Ferry Building and the Domain Museum.


The last building was particularly clever. It had pool in the centre connected to the outside pond through a large doorway. Boats were on the pool and could easliy be sailed out on to the pond. The top gallery had an O-guage railway running around most of the edge. In some places it went through tunnels. Its speed was computer controlled at different places and it had turning loops at each end.


After this we left in search of pies. NZ makes lovely pies and like most NZ things has cheese in.

On the way back I notices elliptical marks on the side windows of the car. In the UK you breath on to a cold surface and it causes the warm moist are to condense on the inside of the glass. Here the opposite was true. The air con in the car cooled the glass and the warm moist are condensed on the outside of the glass, despite our speed of 100kph (80mph).