Day Out

Today I met up with Alex, Cathy and Graham at the grounds of The Sydney Society of Model Engineers at Luddenham. Its somewhere I've wanted to visit for a number of years but never had the excuse before. The site is quite open and as the temperature was 37C. we could only manage a couple of hours.

The grounds are quite extensive and house cars, boats, planes and trains in all their various modes and scales.

Steam trains in the marshaling area.

Some very impressive examples of engineering, and beards.

There is over 3 Kms of well laid out track in a very nice enviroment.

 

Alex was allowed to take the controls of this little three speed diesel loco. His hat is off just for the photographs.

 There they go.

Alex in control.

Other models in the park were all moving too quickly to get any good pics. The tethered race cars were reaching speeds of nearly 200kms/hr.

It was a good day but I would like to go again in a cooler time of year.

More gardening.

With some recent good rain and the warmer days, the garden is bursting forth.

The first bloom on the white wisteria.

Plenty of the blue wisteria in the garden.

The bees love these blue flowers.

A big Fiddle Head Fern doing well despite being more exposed now we have cut back the big over hanging Lilli Pilli tree.

Cut back trees are all shooting.

Even the big Lilli Pilli is starting to shoot.

Walking Lilly

Unfortunately the beautiful flowers don't last very long.

Rainbow.

Monday 13th October, just over a week ago, we had some much needed but very heavy rain. 

After the storm was over and we wandered outside, we noticed this lovely rainbow.

I rushed back inside to get the camera and record the moment.

It took a while to notice that there were in fact two rainbows. I was afraid that if I moved to a better view point they may have faded so I just kept clicking.

Its not often we see a complete rainbow let alone a double one. I should have been on the roof to capture the best shots but it was still wet and too slippy.

Hawkesbury Machinery and Truck Show.

This all happened a few weeks ago but I have only just got around to down loading the photos.

I know I will get into trouble for this from SWMBO, about  the number of photos, but I love this type of event. 

There is such a diverse range of trucks, tractors and stationary engines all lovingly cared for.

These steam rollers are now becoming few and far between.

Jumbos truck next to a lovely Chevrolet owned by Graham Franks .

 

An exciting find. A steam driven Sentinel made in Shrewsbury UK.

Another road roller.

Row upon row of stationary steam engines.

 

 

 

Now some of the big stuff.

 

 Good play on words.

I wonder how much these gold plated wheel nuts are worth?

 

A steam traction engine.

A stationary engine providing belt driven power to ploughs, generators etc..

This is one of my favourites. A single cylinder tractor using paraffin.

It has to be pre-heated with a gas burner and when it fires its like a mini explosion.

One of the exhibits heading home.

The rail line passes alongside the Showground and the Machinery Show happened to coincide with a visit to Richmond by two Steam locomotives.

Take your choice of the locos but I know which I like best.