Labour weekend 'Steam Festival'

Yesterday was quite a nice day for Labour Weekend, historically it's wet and grey and just generally horrible. So my GKB and I decided to go into town for lunch. On the way we thought we might make a detour via the railway station and see what was happening seeing as the 'Steam Festival' is on this weekend.

 

 

 

The farmers market at the northern end of the platform was just upping sticks in readiness to depart. No-one told them we were on our way, ha ha. It's a great place to buy fresh produce,
 jams, pickles etc. Lunch in the cafe on the platform and people watching for a while sounded like a good plan.

 

  

 Steampunk is also part of the festival and some of their members were strolling about - and having lunch at the table next to ours!

 

There is something strangely attractive about these people, costumes and paraphernalia, I'm not quite sure what it is.
 I just love the look of them.
 

 After lunch we met a friend who works on the railway and were given complimentary tickets on the train to go for a trip down the harbourside, leaving in about half an hour.

 

Everyone climbed aboard and we chugged away down the line. Just getting settled in to the journey and the p.a. system tells us there is a problem with the engine and we'll have to go back to the station. So back we chugged much to the disappointment of all the kids on board. It was going to take half an hour to fix whatever was wrong so we disembarked and went up onto the overhead

footbridge for a looksee.

 

 

 

Lots of people, mostly kids, were having rides on the hand powered jigger... 

 

 

...but we decided it was getting too cold and we'd just wait for the engine to come back from whence it had gone and hopefully get a good photo from the bridge. You won't believe it but we waited for over an hour - with the weather closing in and the wind blowing in from the harbour - to get this shot...

 

 

...a great billow of smoke, you can just see the engine. Ha ha, you have to laugh. But we weren't the only ones, there were a lot of trainspotters on the bridge with us as well

 as mums and dads and kids.

 

We didn't get back on the train again, we decided to go and have a hot coffee instead and head back to our nice warm home. The traditional Labour Weekend weather had arrived!

 

Blessings to you and yours,

Diana