Day 48, Level 1: Mid-winter Brunch outside, old photos, and train travel (inc Orient Express)

Firstly apologies for yesterday's post which ended up to be a bit nonsensical. Not sure what happened to the images either. Blame it on the Batch 10 Honey Bourbon that we consumed as a nightcap! Lyle is the honey bourbon king, and we probably consumed more than we should have! This Batch 10 brew is locally produced and I'd bought a bottle at the Matakana market yesterday as a wee treat. Our sampling session last night proved it is indeed a very good drop! Just a bit too good!

Anyway, I've now fixed the glitches with the post, added images and made some sense of the words! 

This morning we sat outside on the deck - it was very pleasant, although every now and then a pesky cold wind would cause us to shiver. 

I whipped up a big cooked breakfast  - well, brunch - and we ate that outside. Middle of winter, eating brunch outside - nice!  The baked beans soaked up the honey bourbon residue nicely!

All of a sudden, the sun disappeared and the temperature dropped by about 5 degrees in an instant. We hurried inside. Did a bit of sitting around doing crosswords and sudokus, reading and chatting. Vicki and I went through a pile of old photos of the Abraham family - lots of laughs, OMGs, sorting, chucking, examining, remembering. We got through a huge chunk of the photos - but there are still many more to go ... another session required at some future point, but a good job done today. 

Vicki and Lyle left to head home, followed shortly after by Brett. 

I carried on sorting a few photos, did a bit of research, made a chicken curry, watched a bit of TV and ate a bit of chocolate!

SHARE-NOTE OF THE DAY:

Train travel ...

I do enjoy train travel. 

Have recently watched a few episodes of "Around the World by Train" hosted by Sir Tony Robinson - who played Baldrick in the Blackadder series. The scenery is great but he's rather irritating. There's an excitable schoolboy-ness about his manner that doesn't suit his mature years. The viewer finds out more about his own learning and wonder about the places he visits than the places themselves, although I have picked up a few gems that require further research. Therein lies the problem - it's scratch the surface, tip of the iceberg stuff, no grunty info shared. He gets up to various activities along the way and there's a vague self-indulgence about it all, rolled together with an air of "look at me", with little substance. The programme would serve its viewers better if it provided more info about the trains and the train journeys. After all, isn't that the purpose/title of the thing?!?

I'd like to do some more train travel over coming years, although it's a bit tricky here in NZ as scenic trains are few and far between, letalone public transport ones. And I can't go anywhere else at the moment, to places where train travel is the norm. 

A most memorable train journey was doing the Simplon Orient Express London to Venice in October 2008 with my friend Lyn. Two days, one night; it was a lot of iconic elegant fun. Photos below. 

A selection of train journeys I've done:

• Moscow to Leningrad, 1982, slow train, cattle class - it took about 14 hours
• Moscow to St Petersburg, 2019, fast train, business class - it took 4 hours
• Silver Star - the overnight train between Auckland and Wellington that ran in the 1970s. Sleeping on a train as a young girl - oh what fun!
• Train between Zurich to St Moritz, via Chur - did this many times in 1989/90 with a friend - our boyfriends at the time worked in St Moritz and we'd even go out for the weekend sometimes! It was about a 2 hour flight from London, then about a 4hr+ train ride (about 2 hours these days). Plus all the airport pfaffing. So it was quite a mission. Worth it for that St Moritz snow, glamour and zany FUN!
• Maglev train Shanghai - from the airport to the city - 430kph. Slick, swish and very speedy. And cheap too.
• The Spirit of Queensland that runs between Brisbane and Cairns. Tony Robinson did this trip so I was keen to watch - I think it got about 3 minutes of profile. Shame.
• Trains all over London and the UK - becomes second nature pretty quickly. And mostly, it works well. British Rail is better than no train, that's for sure. Which is what we mostly have in NZ!!
• The commuter train from Orakei to Britomart, Auckland City, not too far from home. It's a quick and easy way to town without the hassle of parking. Except that there is a terrible hassle to find a park at the train station, which is woefully lacking in parking spaces and a long way from any housing or street parking. Trains aren't that regular. It takes 15 minutes. It requires planning. You still really need a car to get to the train, so there are elements of hopelessness about it, although in theory it's good. Actually, it takes 15 minutes to drive to town  - and it's easier to find a park in the city than at the station. Train or car - depends on many factors as to which is the best mode of transport in the moment! Probably, actually, in all reality ... car!
  
• TGV train from Monaca to Genoa - speedy and scenic. Did this with Michael - not quite sure how we managed the baggage (mostly mine!) but we did, with the help of some nice fellow passengers!
• Train from New York City to Poughkeepsie in the north - I loved that ride along the Hudson.
• Train ride from Venice to Florence - not quite the Orient Express of course, but a very nice day ride all the same! In biz class!
• Coral Coast Railway, Fiji - the sugar cane train from Sigatoka through local villages to an idyllic beach - a scenic journey we did with the boys years ago. Great fun.
• White Pass & Yukon railroad - narrow-gauge railroad from Skagway, Alaska to Whitehorse, capital of Yukon, Canada. The bridges and engineering feats are hard to fathom, the scenery breathtaking. 

I've never done the Chunnel as yet (have always crossed the Channel by flight or boat) - but one day I'll do it ...  Along with the Tranz-Alpine, the Ghan, the Trans-Siberian Express ... and more!