Up and down

Up your's!

Many years ago I lived in Bristol (or Brizzle as the locals put it). I quite enjoyed this friendly city and have fond memories. My hill running improved a lot as one of my training routes involved climbing up out of the gorge to the Clifton Suspension Bridge. One of the suburbs fairly close to the centre of Bristol is Totterdown - quite appropriate given the steepness of some of its streets, particularly Vale Street which is supposed to be the steepest street in Britain.

So it was with delight that we spotted the world's steepest street In Dunedin, New Zealand, this being Baldwin Street on the north side of town. I had no desire to climb it since I'd just finished the local running club Leith Harriers' annual mountain race. Generally the mountain runs I've done in the US, Australia and New Zealand have been interesting but short on vista as they mostly follow forest trails, so a lot of the time all you see are trees and more trees. This was a refreshing change as, halfway up the first climb, we emerged from the track through bushland onto an open mountain where the views were stunning. I decided not to go for the full 26 K and was happy to do just two of the three peaks going home in 10thin a bit under an hour and a half. Watching the final 26 K runners staggering over the line at four and a half hours I felt a bit of a fraud but at the same time managed to justify my choice of event to myself.

And having had Cyclone Debbie affect us in Australia we're now hit with the remnants of Cyclone Cook. It passed overhead in the middle of the night here in Wellington - not too windy now as it's been downgraded to a storm but it's dumped lots of rain. So we're off for a breezy walk this morning but don't expect us to be getting a fast time in the Parkrun tomorrow - unless the wind changes direction at the halfway turnaround. (Cyclones are the southern hemisphere version of hurricanes and they are also named in alphabetical order - so why is Cook after Debbie? It's because Cyclone Cook came from Fiji whereas Debbie came from north of Australia - two different naming regions altogether!)