The road from hell is Rimutaka

The scary road on a bad day.

Wooden crash rails.

Kiwis, as I've said many times, are a crazy bunch.They often make me feel stodgy and unadventurous. They also like to make fun of me for my stodgy unadventurousness. Sometimes I fake it a little bit, so that the stories get crazier. And they always do.

I play along, of course, and smile. I've read all the stories where the adventures go horribly wrong. So the smile is a little smug.

But there is one of the "adventures" where my fear is absolutely physical and genuine. It's called the Rimutaka Road, and it heads north out of Wellington over the Rimutaka Range and down into Wairarapa. It's windy - in both senses of the word - and there are sharp drops protected by very minimal railings. I don't like it at all, and when people tell me that they commute to Wellington from the Wairarapa side I look at them as if they are completely insane. I simply cannot imagine doing that drive every day in every type of condition. I would actually have a heart attack. Yeah, it's that kind of scary.

I hate the drive with a passion. Each venture takes years off my life. And it's not imagined: people drive off the side of mountains all the time in this country.

A large drop on a schizophrenic day: snow one minute, blue sky the next.

Today I had the added pleasure of making this ordeal on a day when it was snowing. Last year, during a sudden snowstorm that hit, more than a hundred vehicles were stuck overnight on the Rimutaka Road. That, my friends, is the very definition of a nightmare. And images of it were flashing through my mind as I white-knuckled it over the range. In fact, as I was pulled over at one of the passing spots, a colleague who was also heading to Masterton passed with a big wave. I know what he was thinking: whatever the Kiwi word for wussy is.

Had I not, in fact, been taking a few deep breaths at the side of the road and rubbing my St. Christopher, I would have been deeply offended by his demeaning attitude. But still, how could he possibly have known that I was not relieving myself at the side of the road?

And of course everything did work out. I was over-reacting, as my Kiwi friends have always told me. But do you see that bush country? If a car goes in there, it could be weeks before it's found. That, too, has happened many times since I've been in New Zealand. I'm just saying.