Lory was amazed!
It was the first time she had seen a model of a landscape and even more exciting - a model train that rides along tracks and makes noises.
"Oh look mommy it's going towards the tunnel, I hope it's not going to crash".
Clearly safety conscious, I don't think she had realised that the little people and animals in the model weren't real and if the train had derailed it probably wouldn't have cause too much harm.
We probably could have stood there until our feet were numb and not have found all the little details that Rinke Blok incorporated when he built this. Apparently it only took him four months from March to July 2020 and many of the trees and little structures were hand made by him. I think he has some experience and is clearly very passionate about building models - he owns the Model Train Shop.
It's by no means small - it spans over 6 metres and was built in sections. It includes features of Knysna like the lagoon, complete with little row boats and the Knysna forest, pine trees and woodmills, the Heads and even the lighthouse.
This has got me thinking about whether Lory is old enough (or interested enough) to make something like this in the near future. I made a model wetland many years ago when I was still at the nature reserve. It wasn't particularly large but it was freaking fun to build ... and I was an adult lol. I'm wondering if this kind of thing is more fun for kids or grown ups?
Look at the level of detail he got here with the little runway, plane, little fisherman in his boat. It's so cool. Ok fine. Maybe this is me trying to justify starting one for myself ... where would I find the time?!
Little guys doing roadworks - he has a jackhammer and his buddy has a pick axe, but where's their PPE? They should at least have hard hats on lol.
I would love to trawl through the charity shops here looking for old kids toys to go into these models, although it would probably end up getting weird with Pteradactyls and Nessy in there somewhere...because well, who's going to stop me?
Little water tanks, a water wheel and even a couple getting married at the local chapel. There's apparently even a mountain leopard in there somewhere. I need to go back there and see what else I can find, I'm sure that I could find new details whenever we stop by.
What did you see that I didn't mention?
