Pretty Vegas

Yesterday, Adam and I went down the line to Rotovegas, to a museum open day with live model steam. They have a wee station and a gorgeous lawn track there, with tunnel, bridge and an awesome setting.



And although steam is not unusual in Rotorua on any day of the week, the only steam lurking where we were came from the boilers of the locomotives on the track, the vintage stationary steam engines and the traction engines. The smell of coal smoke and hot boilers was much nicer than the Rotorua sulphur stink, too.


'Baby' Burrell Traction Engine and big brother 1892 McLaren Compound Steam Traction Engine

Within 5 minutes of getting to the station to see what locos were on display, Adam was asked by a track visitor if he wanted to drive his loco for him while he ate his lunch. Of course Adam said yes. I managed to drag him off it after nearly an hour.



Then we went off into town to find a model shop there that has an HO layout on show



Adam especially liked the locomotives on sale. Of course, the $230+ price tags weren't the reason why I said he couldn't have one. Ok, so I lie, that was the reason. But he still can't have one unless he buys it himself.

After doing little train stuff in town for a while, we went back to the Museum so that Ads could do a few more laps on the loco and have a crack at the woodturning that was on offer at one of the live displays and then we came home.

You can read about the Te Amorangi Museum here, and see the rest of the pics we took today on Adam's blog here.

What a ripper day out we had :-)