Railroads and Cyclone and Cars

Alanna, Patricia and I did the Driving Creek Railway today. It is a tourist attraction about 200m up the road from the cafe that alone probably keeps the cafe open. You can take a small train up the side of the hill/mountain that we're on and then look out over the country/ocean. It's really cool. The railway was originally built by a gentleman named Barry Brickel to transport clay up the hill for his pottery working. It still functions for this purpose today but is also used for carrying tourists. The railway first opened in 1973. To date, it has carried over 1,000,000 tourists. Here are some photos:

In weather related news, there's a cyclone, Cyclone June, blowing through today. Here's a video I made from the porch of the weather.

In transportation related news, I think I have a lead on a car. It's an old Ford Telstra. It would cost me less than $1000 so that's a deal. It runs well and I can use it to drive down the North Island and then down to Queenstown on the souther part of the South Island. Only problem, it's a manual and I don't know how to drive a manual. The guy who's selling it, Jared, told me he'd give me lessons though. We'll see. Shelley, my new local friend, is gonna put a word out to one of her family members who works in an auto body shop in a big city about 3 hours from here. Maybe he'll come up with a good car for me there that's an automatic. Either way, I'm gonna try to buy a car for my journey south because it's gonna be way cheaper than renting one. To rent a car for 3 weeks would be about $3000 NZD. That's maybe $2400 USD. Way more than I'm hoping to spend if I can't possibly get anything back at the end. 

Okay and on to my last bit of news, which I now can't remember what it is anyways..... shoot! Now I have no idea. If It comes back to me I'll let you know. 

I guess that's all for today.

Best!