NZ travelogue: Baldwin Street

There was one final item on my Dunedin agenda. Having missed the Cadbury factory tour, I hurried up my wife and told her that our next destination before leaving Dunedin would be something more of a curiosity than anything else. It would be nothing very special but it was certainly on my "100 obligatory places to visit before you die" list!

I could sense her burning curiosity when I parked the car in Baldwin Street. There, I told her, this is supposed to the steepest street in the world.

Let's go walk up it first and take some photographs, I suggested. But needless to say, we never made it to the top. In fact, our attempt took us past only three or four houses before we called it quits. We really didn't have the inclination to walk all the way up the slope! So we stayed where we were and took the few obligatory photographs.

Then we drove all the way up till the top of the road. Looking down at the spectacular scenery from that vantage point was really something. I wondered how often the residents along Baldwin Street ventured out to walk up and down every day. But even as that thought crossed our minds, we could see people coming out from some of the houses to walk down towards their North Road.

I should also say that driving down Baldwin Street could be rather unnerving. One foot was always on the brake while the hand was ready to put up the hand brake in case of any unexpected problem with the car. It was not as bad as a roller coaster ride and the car made it to the bottom in one piece.

Two signboards proclaiming Baldwin Street as the steepest street in the world. However, you should be reading this article too, which tries to dispute that claim.