driveway from hell Archives | A.S. Akkalon

The glorious driveway from hell strikes again

I explain why for three months I’ve been walking nearly a km between my house and my car each day. The driveway did it.

November was an exciting month.

An electrical storm knocked out our power for two days, broke our internet for a month, and washed out our driveway.

You remember the driveway. Eight hundred metres winding up a hill through native bush, home to quail, glow worms, New Zealand freshwater crayfish, and a rabbit called Nicholas Augustus.

But I was talking about November.

The glorious and sad saga of the driveway from hell

I think my driveway is glorious, but many people hate it. Read for yourself and decide who’s right.

The driveway from the road runs along a valley, winds around a hill, climbs steeply past the orchard and chook house, and finally drops to my house. It’s 800 metres long. (I’ll tell you how I know this shortly.)

It’s home to an unreliable rabbit named Nicholas Augustus, several families of quail that appear each year with their puffball babies, and occasionally a mysterious cat (probably hunting the quail).

Taxi drivers vs the driveway from hell

I travel to Auckland quite often, and the taxi drivers who arrive at the house at 5:30am to pick me up inevitably have one of two reactions:

Reaction 1: What a terrifying driveway! I almost didn’t make it here. Do you actually drive up and down it?

Continue reading “The glorious and sad saga of the driveway from hell”