Railway Tracks and Walking Tracks

First up. I finally get around to posting my 14 pieces of 00 gauge plastic railway track purchased on Temu a couple of weeks back.

As I mentioned on a previous post, the track is designed for a kids train set, so combines to make an oval shape - 8 curves all heading the same way plus 4 straights. I "converted" 4 curves to head the opposite direction and also used one curve to bodge up a set of points!

This is probably all the track I will ever need, although it would be nice to have more straights - so another purchase or two may be in the offing

I popped into Aukland institution "Stoker Models" a couple of days back and managed to grab this very second hand (it does not run when power is put through it) locomotive that I intend to paint up to look a bit more Soviet

Something inspired by these two examples is what I am hoping to end up with!

Interestingly, my cheapo plastic tracks seem to be to scale, and the engines sits on them perfectly!

Also managed to get a few second-hand box cars - again, this is probably all I need for background terrain - grand total of $60 (the engine was $30)

Unsurprisingly really, the rolling stock wheels also match perfectly with my railway track.

I do realise these are really WAY too small for 28mm, although they would work pretty well with 20mm, but for background scenery, they are fine for me with either size of figures! I will paint the two white box cars black and touch up the other three, before dry brushing them etc

NZTB have been in touch this week, castigating me for my lack of activity on their behalf, so to keep them happy, I have two recent walks for you!

Last Saturdays started with a coffee at a local cafe in Pukekohe in pretty nice weather for early spring, as it is here.

We then headed south for about thirty minutes to the small town of Huntly, on the Waikato River.

A short (around 4km) walk around this small lake followed

Local birdlife - if you zoom the images a bit, you will see a couple of Tui's.

And in the following three, a heron (I think!)

Nice display of daffodils

I assume they use this for al fresco weddings - or perhaps lectures on local military history - nah, I think the weddings are more likely!

And here are a few Pukeko

Finishing the walk, I spotted a War Memorial, so of course, had to walk over to take a few pics!

Just a random shot of a nice sunset over the "reserve" (park) at the end of our street sometime in the last few weeks!

Today, we headed into the Auckland suburb of Panmure to walk around the eponymous tidal basin. Ruth and I lived in Panmure when we were first married 38 years ago and used to walk around it quite often. One day I said something like "I hope we are not going to be doing this every week for the next 30 years" - a bit of a throw away line, but I don't think we have been back on that path again until today!

Well, that is my duty done by the tourist board for a little while, more toy soldier content in my next post!