More fun with Viaducts

Bored by viaducts? TOO BAD! I wanted to finish off the Old Coach Road, so I walked it starting from the other end and went to the halfway mark, roughly. That way I will have seen everything the trail has to offer, just split over 2 days. This one had some more viaducts for me to enjoy. They are neat from an engineering perspective, okay? Maybe I should become a Civil Engineer, that was my 2nd choice for engineering careers way back when I had the option of what field to go into. Chemical, Civil and Materials engineering were my top 3. I’m pretty sure I had Electrical dead last. One reason was because Electrical had 3 full years of Calculus instead of 2. Nooooooooo thank you!

Anyways, back to the joys of hiking. 🙂 The day still wasn’t overly pleasant but that didn’t deter me. My time in the region is winding down and I want to make sure to hit the trails I want before I go!

No rain this morning meant the trail wasn’t a muddy mess this time, allowing me to make better time than yesterday. I still made lots of stops for pictures, like here, with a small waterfall in the background.

Then I hit upon my first viaduct. Rather, what little was left of it.

Being a much smaller rise, it was interesting to see that a completely different technique was used here, opting for brick/concrete over the steel frames of the other viaducts. Continuing on, I made it to my goal for the day, the Taonui Viaduct.

As you can imagine, I’m not going to be walking across this one! The Taonui viaduct had been left to crumble. I had to cross underneath here.

I walked a bit further along the Old Coach Road before deciding to turn back. Between today and the other day walking from the other direction, I figure I covered about 80-90% of the track, including the main highlights. Rather than retracing my steps, I hopped onto the newer set of train tracks and followed them back to my car.

Just had to watch for trains!

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