The Museum of Transport and Technology (MOTAT), which opened in 1964, is New Zealand's largest transport, technology and social history museum.  It spread across 40 acres and has  two sites covering areas such as aviation, printing, rail, road transport, steam, military, telecommunications and trams.  At the heart of MOTAT is the 1877 Pumphouse and its magnificent Beam Engine.

Inside the hall the display includes a Fairy Swordfish (part of a memorial to the Fleet Air Arm) and an Avro Lancaster (part of a RAF Bomber Command memorial).

There is a display of de Haviland light aircraft reflecting the strong presence the company had in New Zealand.

Continuing the de Haviland theme the museum also has a Mosquito FB 40 and a Vampire FB 9 on display.

Reflecting the importance of Agricultural Aviation to New Zealand the museum has a display of some of the types used including Transavia PL12 Airtruk registration ZK-CVB (see Powerhouse, Sydney for more photographs of this type). 

The next two photographs are views of the display hall from the gallery.

Going out from the back of the display hall there are a number of aircraft in the open air including two Shorts Flying Boats. 

The first is a civil Short S.45 Solent Mark IV, Solents operated the famous ‘Coral Route' from Auckland to Fiji, Samoa, Cook Islands, Tonga and Tahiti, until September 1960.  This aircraft ZK-AMO "Aranui" was the last operational Solent to fly the Coral Route.  TEAL (on fin) stands for Tasman Empire Airways Limited the forerunner of Air New Zealand.

The second is a Short Sunderland Mk V  flying boat that was built in 1946 and after service with British Overseas Airways Corporation and the RAF was handed over to RNZAF in September 1953.

As can be seen in the above photographs the weather wasn’t great but fortunately MOTAT run a vintage tram between the two sites.

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