When I travelled to 
Upon telling people that I was taking the train I more often than not was greeted with looks of horrified anguish as if I was electing to take a place on the crucifixion. The horror of slowly travelling the country and taking in the sights it seems is just too much for most folk I talked to. Once on the train I always seem to be surrounded with people as pleased with the experience as I am, sometimes even some who are positively enthralled by the experience. As I returned from Auckland I mulled all this over in my head and came to the conclusion that there are train people and non train people, those who want to explore the country and take it all in and those who want to get from a to b as quickly as possible. Similarly there are those who want to search out fantastic beers and enjoy the
experience and there are those who want to ingest alcohol in the quickest and most convenient manor possibly.
I often describe myself as a train spotter although when I say this I mean I have an eccentric passion for beer, breweries and real ale rather than for locomotive serial numbers. I do however have a lot of time for real train spotters’, in fact I have a lot of time for anyone who has passion for an ‘eccentric’ subject. In fact I would rather surround myself with eccentric fanatics than
those who are content to dwell in the beige-ness of the middle road. I have a friend who is obsessed with the American Mid West, another who can talk film for days, their eyes light up when they talk about what they love, it’s great.
As for the train trip as always it was fantastic, the only downside being that a bottle of wife beater was the best beer I could get.
