Dunedin, at the Southern end of the South Island of New Zealand, was our last city before heading back to Auckland for flights home. While there, I was fortunate to be able to catch up with an old friend that I’ve known since I was 5 years old. He’s been living in New Zealand with his wife and 2 children for quite a while now.
Dunedin is an awesome city. There’s something for everyone–architecture, nature, cuisine, history. It really was a great place to spend our last few days in NZ.
If you’ve spent any time with Fazh recently, I guarantee you’ve heard about Baldwin Street. Baldwin Street was among one of the many attractions of historic Dunedin that we were able to visit. According to the Guinness Book of World Records, this street is the steepest street in the world. At its steepest section the gradient is 1 in 2.86. So for ever 2.86 meters traveled horizontally, the elevation changes by one meter.
Every year there are people, CRAZY people who run to the top and back during the “Baldwin Street Gutbuster.” And, for annual charity events, up to 30,000 chocolate candies that look like orange gumballs are rolled down the street. Each of the orange “Jaffas” is purchased for charity prior to the big event. Prizes go to the person whose Jaffa reaches the bottom first. That’s about the only good thing that candy would be for. Chocolate and orange=gross! The video isn’t the best quality, but it’ll do.
We climbed to the top of Baldwin Street…IN THE RAIN, and gladly collected our certificates of achievement when we returned to the tiny shop at the bottom.
Have you encountered any odd World Records in your travels?
~j