I have recently joined the mile high club. Hoho I hear you say – she is too old for that kind of shenanigans – and yes I have to admit my mile high status was not gained via a sordid knee trembler in a cramped aircraft dunny – mine is far more intrepid and exclusive. Mine is of the good old kiwi back country driveway variety.
We have in our family a daughter who has three daughters of her own. Naturally there are many and varied milestone celebrations that must occur. Many of them at the daughter’s place which is out of town – in the sticks to be honest. Naturally our attendance is invited.
The process of getting to this particular daughter’s place requires negotiating a small mountain pass and then a poorly maintained country road that meanders along the edge of a meandering river – into which bits of the poorly maintained road regularly slip. Negotiating it all is not for the faint-hearted – particularly when you are a poor passenger and the river is on your side of the road.
I consider myself to be a far better driver than passenger, and on this occasion, I was allowed to drive the brand-new ute most of the way. I was dismayed when we got to the bit where there is space to pull off the narrow road just before the daughter’s 4WD only driveway to engage our own 4WD to be unceremoniously ordered from the driver’s seat. I was not to have first turn at negotiating the windy, near vertical, unlit kilometre long driveway.
This was an evening assignation and it was a dark and moonless night. As a reluctant passenger, I would far prefer that if we were to fall off an unlit, steep, and winding driveway it should be due to my own stupidity rather than someone else’s.
Such was my resolve on this matter, that I threatened to walk the last leg. Such was my husband’s confidence on this matter, that he called my bluff AND chose to make the dog (which he loves more than life itself) to take the safest route. On foot. With me.
Off he drove. Off we set. The dog and me. Into the night. Up the steep and windy dark and narrow driveway. The one with big drops off one side and not much of a bank on the other.
The dog was very patient. We stopped frequently so I could puff and together we made many tentative forays off the edge to be sure we were still on the track. We had rounded the last gnarly corner when the silence was broken by a vehicle descending at high speed – at which point we abandoned our quest to stay on the track for fear of being squashed on it.
The vehicle had been dispatched to rescue us. The daughter was mortified that the dog and I had been left to negotiate this feat without light.
As it happens – lots of people have ascended the hill (I remind you it is almost a kilometre) on foot in the daytime. However very few have done it in the dark and even fewer have done it without any light. It’s amazing where equal measures of sheer terror and pig-headedness can lead a girl. My self-proclaimed induction to my very own exclusive and intrepid Mile High Club is where it got me.
If I’m entirely honest – my knees WERE a bit trembly by the time I got to the top.