Steep? You don’t know steep until you’ve strolled up Baldwin Street in Dunedin. That’s steep. And nobody strolls the world’s steepest street: for every 2.86 meters you walk, you get a meter higher.
What would you do if you had a street like that in your backyard? That’s right, you’d set 75,000 chocolate balls free at the top, watch them tear down the 350-meter hill at 60mph and then inform the owner of the first Cadburys Jaffa to the bottom that they were Dunedin’s biggest winner that July.
Sadly, the closure of the Cadburys factory meant the end of the Jaffa Race.
Fortunately, for those living in and around the world’s only mainland breeding colony for the Northern Royal Albatross, they still have the ENEOS Otago International Classic Rally and New Zealand Rally Championship opener, the Winmax Otago Rally to look forward to.
And the looking forward bit is all-but done. Otago weekend is upon us! The Kiwi rally season starts right here.
DirtFish is offering wall-to-wall coverage of the South Island classic. Running across the weekend, tune into DirtFish and our social channels to stay ahead of Fanga Dan’s progress in that Escort or to find out how many stage records Hayden Paddon has broken.
We’ll bring you words, pictures and some stunning video coverage courtesy of Black Magic man Paul Mullan and our own Colin Clark.
Last week was México’s Rally of Nations Guanajuato, this week it’s New Zealand and the Otago Classic helping to bridge the World Rally Championship gap between Sweden and Croatia.
It’s a decade since New Zealand last featured in the WRC – but that wait ends in September, when Rally NZ returns to Auckland. The Otago Rally ranks among the South Island’s biggest sporting events and it’s a great way to remind everybody what we’ve been missing.
COVID restrictions mean we can’t be there in person, but we’ve teamed up with the event organizer to bring you the best coverage possible from this rally-mad nation.
Don’t forget to interact. Let us know what you think of the coverage via those social channels.
And before we go, we’ve got a couple more Dunedin nuggets for you.
Did you know, the Northern Royal Albatross has a three-meter wingspan? That’s less big bird, more small plane.
Dunedin’s railway station is NZ’s most photographed building and the yellow-eyed penguin, native to the city, is the world’s rarest penguin.
Enough with the penguins. Enjoy the weekend.
