Profile
Blog
Photos
Videos
After leaving the Stafford Gables early this morning, we traveled for hours and hours (the concept of time in conjunction with reality is now one wasted on me!) – I don’t even know how many- until we reached Arthurs Pass.
No we didn’y, I’m telling fibs again! We stopped off at Starbucks in Dunedin before we left, and had a few Coffees, whilst we used the internet there, although Mum did partake in her preferred pastime of complaining to the staff there, as the cheeky little bleeders charged us $10 an hour for the priveledge!!(Like, the ONLY one in the World that we have been to so far that does!) But, we had some stuff to do, so we just agreed and enjoyed the Coffee, until we noticed a beastly-looking Parking attendant hovering dangerously close to the car, where we had been parked for an hour already, in a half-hour zone, so we quickly had to abandon internet and Coffee to make a runner for it, just in time to avoid a ticketing! (Gutted- didn’t get chance to savor the flavor of my last sips of Peppermint Hot Chocolate!!)
By the way, I apologise for the randomness of my spelling in this, but this computer is set to American spell check, and it’s doing my head in, so I’m just letting it do what the heck it wants now!! I’m too technophobic to try and do anything otherwise!!
And how could I forget this!?!
Then, we drove slightly out of town to a place called “Baldwin Street,” which happens to hold the Guinness World Record (1997) for being “The Steepest Street In The World!”
It’s about 47 meters in height, if I remember correctly, and at its steepest point, has an uphill gradient of ½!
But, before we even started on conquering the street, we became preoccupied with a family of ducks (little, baby ducklings!) who were stood at the side of the road (randomly) looking very cute, so we made friends with them, and fed them most of the remaining bread that we had in the boot of the car. (Mainly causing them to attack each other, which wasn’t that good, really.)
When we had finished feeding that lot, we decided that although it would probably damn-near kill us to do it, we couldn’t come to “The Worlds’ Steepest Street” without climbing it, so we set about it.
It was bloody nackering! And it seemed to take such a long time to get to the top! But I took my usual stance of doing it all in 1 swoop, despite the agony and “the burn” experienced, as I know that otherwise, if I stop, I’d probably just collapse and cry for an ambulance or something!(Or, in this case, go rolling backwards down the street!)
At one point, I was even walking backwards, in a fashion similar to a “Moonwalk” (chamone) to fight the burn, but eventually, Mum, Paul, and I triumphantly reached the top! (Although slightly delirious and exhausted, and I think that there may have been just a little altitude sickness in there, too!)hehe.
Nah, it wasn’t that bad, really, I’m totally exaggerating! But, it was tiring! However, we were all made to feel suitably inadequate by a hotpant-clad, vest-wearing, OAP, who must have been at least 75, but looked bloody good for it, who we got chatting to at the top, who (randomly) told us about his Pig Hunting, and how he caught one that was 60kg (?!) and about his wild berry eating expeditions in the wilderness (?!) before informing us that he did 30 laps of the street, daily “to keep fit.”
Yeah, yeah, nobody likes a show-off, Gramps!!hehe. Anyway, he thought he was some kind of Crocodile Dundee/Rambo dude!! But, I must say, he was up and down the street about 4 times just whilst we were getting our breath back!! So it must have been working for him! (Along with his wild berry detox, that is!) You know, we do meet some randomers along the way!!
Then, we came back down, which was harder than I anticipated, and probably about as hard as going up, as by this point, the legs are a little wobbly, and you have to try so hard not to just have your legs fail beneath you, and go hurtling down the thing!
After getting down safely, we decided to drive up, too, (just because we could) which, I didn’t let on to Mum and Paul at the time, but I actually found quite scary, as on he way up, I had visions of rolling down backwards when the car was chuderring up, and on the way down, it was a similar sensation to being on a rollercoaster, as we were rolling down that fast!! But it was all ok, and we stopped at the nearby souvenir shop to get certificates saying that we had conquered the street, by walking, and driving!
Wohoo!! (Although, I was disappointed that “Moonwalking” wasn’t one of the options, as I can now proudly say that I have Moonwalked up the Worlds’ Stepeepest Street!!)
Anyhow…we really did go all the way to Arthurs’ Pass after that, only stopping to get a bite to eat. The only notable difference from all other long distance drives being that I rode on the passenger side for a change, as Mum was sleeping in the back. ( I’m sure that is enthralling to you all!)
We had wanted to stop off at some Mountain before we left Dunedin, to view an Iceberg that was floating close to the shore, but the weather was rubbish, so although we were disappointed, we decided to give it a miss.
However, as soon as we left Dunedin….Glorious sunshine all the remainder of the journey!! Typical!!
We drove all the way through loads of Mountains and Ski Resorts, into the really remote area of Arthurs Pass, where we are now at the “Mountain House YHA” which is a fairly modern and well equipped Hostel, considering that it’s slap bang in the middle of nowhere!! The scenery (as always) is beautiful, though, with yet more snowy Mountains and little waterfalls dotted around.
When we had checked in, we decided to go for a little explore, “little” being the operative word, as the place was so small, it took all of 3 minutes to completely circum navigate the villiage, including stoppage time for Mums’ photography!!
Although, we did see a few Kea again, curiously hopping around. Which was kind of cool!!
This place is obviously a place to come if you want to go tramping or climb a Mountain, so I wouldn’t say that there was nothing to do…but seeing as though, a) None of us were particularly planning to go tramping, and b) it was getting quite late to do so, even if we wanted to, anyway…there was nothing to do.
En route back to the Hostel, we stepped into the Visitor Center foyer, as it was open after hours, to see if there were any interesting notices up, and I was surprised to read a notice warning of “malicious car damaging and theft” that had been occurring recently in the area, and even more shocked to hear the sounds of some type of deathmetal blaring through the doors, obviously being the cleaners’ soundtrack of choice!
I would never have guessed that either of such things would have reached such a small and remote community!! But that just shows how wrong you can be, I suppose!
Then, I was utterly flabbergasted, when walking down the street to the Hostel again, to see a real life Chav walking on the opposite side of the strret, towards us!!
At first, I thought that it must be a hallucination or my eyes were deceiving me, but they weren’t!! It was a fully fledged Chav, that would have not been out of place in any UK Highstreet!! I did wander if it was a tourist, or a local, but I couldn’t for the life of me imagine why a British Chav would be in Arthurs Pass, New Zealand!! But, I suppose that’s making generalizations, isn’t it!?
So, after that shocker, we had something to eat at the Hostel, which was interesting, as the “unusual” lady that we are sharing the 4 bed dorm with, Deborah, from Colorado, attempted to donate to Mum and I some of her leftover sliced Carots…to eat with our Porridge!!!hahaha. ( She eventually managed to palm them off on a Chinese couple after a hilarious conversation, you know the type, where people miss out all the grammar “I no want Carrots. You want Carrots?” That kind of thing- and even went as far as putting them in a Tupawear for them!) Very nice of her, but Carrots and Porridge have never taken my fancy, for some reason!
And since then, I have been stuck in the dorm with Deborah, who is rather hard to talk to, so I am off to bed to get some rest, and to do something slightly more entertaining than sit in the dorm awake!!!!!!!
- comments