Highlights

These items and audio recordings are a part of our Covid 19 collection which aims to document this time via the innovations created in New Zealand since March 2020.

Advertising posters designed by the New Zealand Railways Department’s publicity studio encouraged Kiwis to choose rail for their holiday transportation.

Featuring vivacious figures and picturesque landscapes, these sometimes quirky posters offer a chance to reflect on how New Zealanders of the past holidayed and explored their own ‘backyard’.

This highlight showcases the full collection of rail posters from the Richard Croker Collection. Twelve of these posters feature in Best Reached by Rail at the Walsh Memorial Library from 3 August 2020 - 20 July 2021

Discover the MOTAT collection by searching by colour, found on the Collections Online homepage! We've got you started by selecting a few objects tagged with green - everything from 'khaki' to 'sea green'.

A selection of glass plate and lantern slide negatives digitised by the Walsh Memorial Library, showing Aotearoa in the late 19th and early 20th centuries.

A selection of photographs from the Cliff Tait Collection. Depicting various aspects of Tait's solo flight around the world on the Airtourer - 'Miss Jacy'.

A selection of collection of colour renderings and reports created for the Auckland Rapid Transit project (1973-1976) from the Richard Croker Collection.

Donation by TechLab NZ Ltd of first and second generation HirstLens NZ equipment with accompanying archive showing examples of business records, marketing ephemera and pictorial items.

A collection of manuscript, ephemera, pictorial and object items relating to Jean Batten and the management and flight of the Percival Gull aircraft.
The collection includes original engine log books, aircraft log books, and 'Form 700' records which evidence the history of the aircraft when it was registered as G-ADPR and AX866; log books issued by the Civil Aviation Authority of New Zealand with aircraft registration ZK-DPR; photographs of Jean Batten in Naples; instructional documents related to the aircraft; ownership transfer and management documentation; a scrapbook relating to the return of Percival Gull G-ADPR, a flying cap worn by Jean Batten and flight instruments.

A series of posters advertising flights from New Zealand

From idea, to prototype to product. Explore objects which reflect how innovation creates technological change in everyday objects. This highlight is a supplementary resource for our Inventions and Innovation online education programme: motat.nz/learning/online-workshops