Friday 28 June 2013

Kaponga : The Southern Gateway to Mt Taranaki

Kaponga :A Town on the Steampunk Frontier



The Southern Gateway to Mt Taranaki 


 

 Kaponga was settled in the 1870s  through the New Zealand Land Company .
The settlement is nine miles west of Eltham, and sixteen miles east of Opunake, on a good coach road. It is part of the Kaponga survey district of the Taranaki land district, and is in the Waimate riding of the county of Hawera. It was  set up to service the settlers on the farm clearings in the surrounding area.

The area  has a bounty of  beautiful natural features that have attracted Intrepid Steampunk adventurers from the 1840s to this day
    
Kaponga Anglican Bible Class on the summit of Mt Egmont, 1908. This group was indebted
to Dr and Mrs Maclagan for its vitality. 



Tramping & hiking remain popular with tourists and visitors to the area , bike tours are gaining traction


Dawson Falls cascading down the decades

Ever the  ideal in Steampunk Intrepid Exploration in the New Zealand  Grand Tour experience


 


 Dawson Falls  own Romantic Hotel

 

  

Still working ,The Power Station at Dawson Falls is the one of the oldest in the country. Built in New York in 1901 it landed in Kaponga c1935




Kaponga- Still a one horse town



Good On Old Steampunk Len Brown

   Steampunk Len Brown


A dream of the past seen through a vision  of the future

 Mayor Steampunk Len  

 

              

 

                   Mayor  Dove Myer Robinson                   






Mayor Steampunk Len[train enthusiast]fought a long and hard battle for  Auckland trains. He has come through the other end. There is light at the end of the tunnel. Sir Dove Myer Robinson's rail  dreams may yet come to pass

Tuesday 25 June 2013

Pioneer of the Steampunk Frontier



 William David Hughey 
[aka David William Hughey]
  
Sporting a  superior set of  Mutton Chops