Dunedin

Winter sun continued to sparkle as we took an hour's walk out of Dunedin's city centre and past brick Victorian terraces that make it appear like home. Turning at the Botanical Gardens we headed to the world's steepest residential street, Baldwin Street.

If you Google/YouTube this street name you'll find a raft of articles/videos to people's efforts to run or race up/down its 38% gradient as well as the city's annual Cadbury Jaffa race where thousands of Jaffas, each sponsored by a paying ticket, are released from the top to tumble to the bottom. Today however it was just us and a handful of other tourists, the more energetic hiking its pavements and the less so driving their cars.

The gradient is so steep we found ourselves leaning forward onto our toes as we drove our legs forward into the climb. Heads down and pressing on we were gulping shallow breaths as we reached the top. There we found a wall and bench painted with a mural to the street. Sat unassuming on the bench, in white gumboots and with black headphones cupped around his neck, was 63 year old local resident Dave Kernahan.

We struck up conversation about our travels and his friends and family from the UK and in doing so we learnt that he has been running up and down Baldwin Street for the last 20 years. When asked about this Dave explained that he runs 30 times up and 30 times down the street a day. The street holds a 'Gut Buster' race, which he enters and a quick google search shows he has been noted in a number of news articles (http://edition.cnn.com/2014/03/04/travel/worlds… - http://www.odt.co.nz/your-town/dunedin/169555/6…). Incredible achievements and a pleasant bloke to boot.Leggi altro