Baldwin Street: Dunedin, New Zealand
A major city on New Zealand's
South Island, Dunedin is famous for its sizable student population, wealth of
Victorian architecture, UNESCO-recognized literary pedigree and for having
hills — lots and lots of hills. It's at Signal Hill in North East Valley, one
of Dunedin's slope-y inner-suburbs, that you'll find this already-photogenic
city's most Instagrammable landmark: a street that seems to shoot right up into
the heavens.
Dead-ending in what's likely
the world's most terrifying cul-de-sac, 1,150-foot-long Baldwin Street reaches a maximum grade of 35 percent, rising
from 98 feet above sea level at its bottom to 330 feet above sea level at the
top. While Baldwin Street's length is modest, its dramatically inclined nature
has earned it the title of world's steepest residential street by Guinness
World Records. However, there's typographical error-based controversy attached
with this title as, supposedly, the street's grade in degrees was confused with
its percentage grade, initially measured at 38 percent and later downgraded to
35 percent. Whatever the case, Baldwin Street is the real deal — a tourist
magnet in which brave visitors limp away with photos of impossibly tilted
abodes and incredibly sore calves.
The result of a London-based surveyor laying
out Dunedin's neat grid system without taking into consideration the area's ultra-hilly
terrain, Baldwin Street is home to two annual competitions: the Baldwin Street
Gutbuster and the Cadbury Jaffa Race, a hugely popular event also known as the
Running of the Balls in which thousands of red-shelled chocolate candies are
hurled from the top of the street in the name of charity.
