Getting to Arthur’s Pass involved a trip through the now-standard South Island scenic grandeur, which my cellphone is not really capable of capturing, as demonstrated here;

Got in as darkness happened, which is why the other backpacker getting off at AP & I missed the wee sign saying which way to turn once you’d left the station access underpass to get to the hostel.
Robert from Germany guessed right, based on having seen some buildings that way, and turned out to be correct.

I’d booked a double room, which in the context of the YHA Arthur’s Pass apparently means a separate building, which the owner didn’t want to put me in because “it doesn’t work out”, so I ended up with a four-bed dorm to myself.
I’m assuming they have a zombie problem, and one person in an isolated building cannot maintain a proper defense.
Or it’s a Kea problem; That seems possible too.

Finding this on the notices inside the door adds further weight to my Zombie theory, though it maybe could be Kea in a Zombie suit; That can happen.

Haven’t seen a Kea, but I’m pretty sure I’ve heard them, and there was a suspiciously parrot-ish shape against the night sky.
Also, the hostel owner approved, in a loud & amused way, of my ‘food that doesn’t squish’ dinner choices.

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I got overenthusiastic on the heating, it turns out.
This place has in-floor heating, and if you’re a little bit patient, it’s plenty warm enough.
The toilets & showers also have in-floor heating, though the portion of the outside world you have to pass through to get to them does not. It’s covered, so there’s no risk of being rained on, and it did rain, but it does add a certain swiftness & motivation to the walk, particularly if you forgot to put socks on.

I got to a place of breakfast too late, and had poorly-chosen bar nachos for breakfast.
I say poorly chosen because nacho hiccups while climbing eleventy-billion steps are less than fun.
Nice scenery though.

First up was a little waterfall, the name of which entirely escapes me, but which was probably the Avalanche Creek Waterfall.
Because that’s not a portentous and doom-filled name at all.

Then there was the Devil’s Punchbowl.
The guidebook says that it’s 150 vertical metres; They don’t mention, and I think that it’s important, that this figure is what you get when you add all of the up & subtract all of the down. There were a lot of steps.

So, that happened, and I lived, though regretted the nachos.

It’s worth pointing out that, while there are “Don’t Feed The Kea” signs up, some of them, in the places closest to food-vending areas, have been vandalised in very specific ways;

It got cold at night.
Snowfall cold.

Here’s the area outside my room/the bathrooms for the outside-access rooms/the kitchen. (there’s a bit of a lawn area)

My room was the left orange door in the centre of the shot, and yes, that concrete got REALLY cold in the snow.

 

Though not as cold as this “Nope” picture was to take.

Naturally, I was not going to just sit there and look at the snow; If nothing else, I had the warm hat Poing Critter made me to test out. Also my merino base layer (not pictured).

This was supposed to be a picture of my Indianapolis Colts hat being artfully covered with snow. Not Sure If Working.

Looks like it’s raining.
Isn’t.

Tourists from probably Malaysia making a very little snowman.

There were a number of them, from Malaysia & Taiwan, in what looked to be multiple independent groups, out there playing in the snow. To be fair, it was the first time they’d seen it.
My excuse? Not sure; Mind of a child?

One group did ask me how to drive on snow.
They had no chains, because nobody thought they’d need them.
“Slowly and Carefully” was about the best I could do. I did advise that they talk to the folks at the DOC Visitor’s Centre, and tried to warn them about black ice, but I’m not sure they really understood.

Very warm hat is indeed very warm,

and snow-resistant!

And here’s what it looked like in the morning.

I ate breakfast outside, on the off chance that Kea would turn up, but none did.
Heard them a lot though; They sounded unimpressed with the cold.

“You’re an alpine parrot, Barry; Harden up!”
“Easy for you to say, Trev.; You haven’t got a poo frozen halfway out.”
~ long pause ~
“Barry, do you know that when you fly like that, you look like a feather duster?”

Once the sun got over the mountains, the snow more or less vanished.

And so I walked through a mostly snow-free, though still pretty damn cold, Arthur’s Pass on my way to the train.

To wait in an empty train station, clearly designed for more people than were currently using it.

With a locked & disused ticket office opposite the waiting room, with lights showing over the top of the boarded-up windows.

The only lights on inside the whole place.

‘Cause that wasn’t creepy at all.

And I certainly wasn’t thinking of that Sapphire & Steel episode with the station hotel.

Nope nope nope.