a clay crusher a brick making machine a clay chopper and a really impressive one – because the turns are so tight on the railway track the train wheels wear on the bogies.  So they have designed independent-axle wheels with independent hydraulic motors.  Thus each train has 16 independent powered wheels in contact with the track, and can haul a trainful of humans – more than the clay it was supposed to – with ease. 

This is a very efficient and cheap kiln, which took my fancy.  A couple of diesel fuel pumps are driven by an electric motor, paralleled in 3’s to give 4 outlets of high flow diesel through 4 injectors to fire a kiln for bricks.

The fuel is filtered sump oil, and the secret of getting it to burn is to mix water with it – the water evaporates and disperses the oil, allowing it to combust completely.

He built the railway as a natural engineer – having been building things all his life, starting with a kiln age 7.  I was mighty impressed by the simple straightforward approach to doing everything.

Naturally in these sad days of the rule of occupational health and safety wonks the ongoing success of this enterprise is limited – some twerp will come up with some rule which kills it.  Nevertheless it’s still going, and I did ask – all the engineering is checked and is up to standard.

A remarkable man, but some of the pottery is a bit too remarkable.

Barry Brickell always wanted to be a potter and was fascinated by trains.  He got a teaching qualification, then a short-lived job in Coromandel high school, before starting life as a potter.  He bought a 60 Ha property just outside the town, largely because it had excellent sources of clay on it, and despite the fact it was a bare hillside.

He became an inventor, engineer, designer, potter, conservationist and teacher.

Since the clay he wanted was up the hill, the obvious thing was to make a railway to bring it down.  Buying railway track and bits at scrap prices from the mines in the area, he surveyed, benched the hillside, and laid a railway all the way to the top.  It took him 25 years, initially done by himself, later with many volunteers.  Not only is it the newest railway in NZ, it has been built completely without government money and with the help of volunteers.

Bricknell, now 79, doesn’t do much manual work nowadays and is mainly interested in conservation – having started and directed the planting of about 30,000 trees on the property.  The once bare hillsides are now lush bush, protected under covenant.

These figures are carved from the trunk of the NZ manfern – beneath the soft bark is an extremely hard trunk which grows moss to make strange figures in the lakes

Found this place quite by accident while driving along the Coromandel coast road.  It was started 50 years ago by a German couple who established the gardens, then bought by two other owners, the present one having also discovered it by chance.

A remarkable place, beautifully set out, giving a feeling of tranquility after you’ve walked around it for a while.

tis the season – just before the end of term for the summer holidays, they’re all out on excursions.  Here you see the remains of a large bunch of them who descended on our peaceful lunch spot by the river, immediately started throwing stones, then dispersed away from the teachers, jumped along the rapids, fell in, started fighting etc etc.  Then, like a flight of finches, darted off to disturb the peace elsewhere.

So for a change of pace from all them hobbits we went north to the Coromandel peninsula, stopping at Karangahake Gorge.  Some amazing ruins of gold getting there, one of the things I find extraordinary is the extent of the buildings in those days, huge plants and transport systems.  And now it’s all gone.

This is all that’s left:

I wonder where all the cyanide went from these massive tanks.  I don’t suppose they disposed of it thoughtfully!

The big oak tree at the top of the hill – above Bilbos home – was actually a manufactured trunk, though totally realistic, with artificial leaves wired to it. Naturally the sun turned the leaves pale after a while, so they periodically take them off and repaint them!

They had even gone to the trouble of getting glass made with uneven thickness, as in the old glass, for the windows.