Planes and trains are not my usual thing but when you have two boys sometimes you just give in to the inevitable. I may have made the usual rash statements when pregnant about buying my boy a doll (rather like not dressing your little girl in pink) but forget it. It's hardwired. Or it is with mine.
So to indulge our boys, Auckland's
Museum of Transport and Technology (MOTAT as it's known) was our destination yesterday and there are boy things in abundance and plenty of girls enjoying them too of course.... even me.
Why is it that the trams that seem so mundane in Melbourne are so much fun on a Kiwi Sunday afternoon?
MOTAT is a train and plane spotters dream and my Dad will LOVE it. They have a fabulous collection of bits and pieces from New Zealand and plenty from other parts of the world too. Fire engines, steam rollers, buses, trams, carriages, cars, trucks and planes.
Oddly enough, I was really taken with the massive Lancaster bomber. My dad is a Word War Two buff and I grew up in a house littered with books on the subject. The
Dam Busters story has always fascinated me and it was Lancaster bombers that carried the specially designed bouncing bombs to breach two dams and flood the Ruhr valley. Apparently Peter Jackson is remaking the film and there are ten life size lancaster replicas in a warehouse in Wellington.
Lancasters flew more than 150,000 sorties across the Channel during the war. It's a lumbering looking machine, and just imagining the gunners perched like sitting like ducks in the gun turrets gives you shivers. Not to mention the Germans at the receiving end of 600,000 tons of bombs.
The NZ pilots are famous for their contribution (well and truly over and above population numbers would suggest). I have been to a Lancaster bomber museum in NZ can't remember where, maybe in the south of the North Island. I agree with you re trains and cars. It is hardwired. xo
ReplyDeleteLooks like your boys really enjoyed themselves!! What a great place! Yes I agree also, it is totally hardwired!!!! Glad you had a nice weekend. xx
ReplyDeleteSounds like the perfect boys day out! Its amazing that we learn an appreciation for "boys toys" since they put smiles on our loved ones faces :)
ReplyDeleteWhat a fine, colourful and interactive museum - hours of fun for girls too, I bet. Young Master Villa Life is ever so striking with his lovely hair. I hope lovely isn't the wrong word for a boy; perhaps I mean handsome hair.
ReplyDeleteGreat photos, Ann! That's not my thing either but you got me intrigued. J x
ReplyDeleteNoah would be enthralled by that place. I remember going there as a kid, and it was fun, but nowhere near as fun for me as it was for my Dad! It really is hardwired, isn't it?!
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