Visit New Zealand

- By Diana Tijoriwalla

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• Indians in NZ
• The Howick Historical Village
• School Levels
• The Treaty of Waitangi.
• Maori Cooking
• Anzac Day 25th April
• Auckland Regional Parks
• Tongariro National Park
• The Buried Village (Rotorua)
• Auckland's Islands
• Paradise Valley Springs (Rotorua)
• MOTAT
• The Polynesian Spa
• Rules for Teachers
• Daffodil Day
• The Waitakere Ranges
• Western Springs Tramway
• Auckland Museum
• New Zealand's Pride
• The Tuatara
• Maungakiekie
• Secondary Schools
• Sir Edmund Hillary
• Halloween
• Auckland Zoo

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MOTAT

Museum of Transport & Technology

This museum is unique in its own way. You can see all the olden days machinery, articles, instruments, cars, etc. It’s fascinating to watch how they operated & functioned in a way, which we can’t imagine. Here is all about this place in a gist.
The big milking machine shows how they processed their milk. The early Canadian used a special chainsaw, which you can see very closely. You can see the 1910 Tangye Steam Engine, the bullock yoke, the different vehicles (Phaeton, Buggy, Gig), the agricultural spray unit, the Tip Dray ( agricultural cart pulled by teams of horses) & the 1880’s Hearse of Victorian times. The HMS Endeavour the vessel in which Captain Cook made his first voyage to NZ, originally was named the ‘Earl of Pembroke’ & was built at Whiby, Yorkshire, by Fishburn in 1764. You can see how butter was made & how the Loom worked in those days. You can get some information on Lord Rutherford & Dr. Ernest Walton (1934) – the first men to split the atom. You can see the full network of the first communication system from cavemen till 1971- first access to the world by satellite from NZ. You can get a close glance at the Waterworks Engineer’s house- built in the 1877 on this site, the Bagnall Cottage –1848, Chapel of the Good Shepherd built in 1898, a model classroom- with slates, piano, desk, blackboard, chalk, and books. The Earthquake Cake is a small room which you sit & experience the different frequencies of the earthquake tremors. There is a small blacksmith’s hut, which actually demonstrates how to make a horseshoe & other iron articles.
There are still many more things to see like the Momentum machine, the different types of levers, the wind tunnel, the Beam Engine, cameras & gramophones, the Bernoulli Blower, the Power Station (where you can turn the handle & it generates electricity & you can power the light, fan or water heater), Drawing Pendulums & Hand Battery (where you place your hand on zinc & copper & see your body current). There are olden days cars for exhibition looked after by ‘Ford’. The ‘Tactile Dome’ ( feeling your way through completely dark rooms, you walk, slide & climb until you discover what’s in each room & find your way to the end).
The most exciting journey through the MOTAT is to see the replica of Richard William Pearses’ first aeroplane –1903 & the big Auckland Trolley Bus, which was used between 1949 & 1954.
The ‘Shadow Room’ where your shadow gets captured on the screen for a few seconds even after you have moved away. You can see a real mini railway station, with the train & the tracks, & a signal room along with the platform. The MOTAT runs the tram from the outside of MOTAT till the Zoo & return. One big room shows the use of the different meters used in the consumption of electricity from the old days till the present day. There are olden days washing machines, ovens, etc. A small cell where criminals were kept behind the bars & in wooden frames. There are those days grocery shops, chemist & druggist shops & a dress alteration shop. You can see a man moving on the two-wheel bicycle ‘Penny Farthing’. You can go about on a horse drawn carriage for a ride by paying $2 per person. You can see the 1910 steam engine, which runs on coal (the man in this section will actually show you how the steam is generated by putting coal & how the cylinders work). You can see the diesel engine too.

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