The Northern Explorer - Auckland to Wellington

The Northern Explorer scenic train runs from Auckland to Wellington 3 times a week with the return trip the following day. The journey takes about 11 hours with a few brief stops on the way. The train has 4 carriages, a restaurant car and an open observation coach. 

The BritMart - the station in Auckland is recently refurbished, very flashy and unlike any station I have seen before - it seems to be all indoors. 

We had an early start: the train left at 0745 and we had to check in before that. We left our cases in the luggage van and then collected our breakfast, which we had ordered in advance from the train bar. While we were waiting for the train to depart, we saw a couple of lightly loaded trains arrive, but the station was quiet at 0730.

Trains on North Island are limited to modern local trains around Auckland and Wellington, the only long distance passenger train is the Northern Explorer. 

The first part of the journey took us through the urban spread of Auckland and was not particularly interesting.  As we moved further away from Auckland, the landscape was very much like that of the UK and northern Europe until we reached Hamilton. The fields had sheep and cattle (most sheep ran away from the line when they heard a train approaching) and the only hint that this is not Europe is the occasional tree fern or yucca.

When we left Hamilton, the scenery became much more interesting and so we moved down to the observation coach where we spent an hour taking photos.

This seems to be a Kale related crop, the colour is noticeable. 

The scenery changes all the time and we saw views that are only possible from this train.

A feature of this track is the Raurimu Sprial which was built in 1898.  the spiral allows the train to climb or descend  by 132m in a straight line distance of 2 km, but the train travels 6.8 km. Here you can see the curve. 

The route at the top looks like this

So you can see the track below as you go round the spiral

The observation carriage is full during this part

The route continues through national parks, where we stop to pick up and drop off walkers. 

A viaduct in the Tongario national park which was once the railway viaduct and is now part of a walking route. 

We continued through remote areas until we reached the south of North Island and approached Wellington where we joined local train services. 

The commentary had been excellent throughout, focusing on the Maori history of the areas. It was impressive that the Maori history goes back to the name of the canoe that brought an original Maori settler family in about the twelfth century.

As we reached Wellington, we picked up rivers, plains and motorways before we joined the coast. 

And finally the sea as we came into Wellington