The Gutbuster

Well... our day of relaxation yesterday didn't actually last the whole day. We saw a flyer for the annual Gutbuster run/walk up the steepest road in the WORLD and we couldn't help but going to check it out. When we arrived to Baldwin Street, cones were up and the locals were crowding around a table to enter this fundraiser event. We watched little ones zoom up and then come back down at blazingly scary speeds... some kids looked like they may start rolling if they went any faster. Mally and I decided that we too had to run up the hill because we may never get a chance to run up the steepest road in the world again. So, despite our aching legs, we entered the run and decided our goal would be to run the whole way without stopping. This goal didn't seem so difficult when we stood at the bottom of the 400m. hill, but the gun went off and we reached cone 1/11 with burning lungs and fire running through our muscles (oh dear!). We just kept counting the cones down - 10, 9, 8...7.....6.......5... and eventually... we reached the top. The way down was perhaps even harder... at an attempt to save our knees, we zigzagged across the road and went at the slowest "run" we could manage. At this point, we began to get passed by 12 year old boys (ok.. maybe even 10.. but they didn't bike up 100's of hills the day before :o). We crossed the finish line with smiles and went away with a t-shirt to mark our accomplishment! So much for a day of rest, but we had a great time.

Today we managed to find a flat road in New Zealand... believe it or not, they do exist. We rode out to the tip of the Otago Peninsula... down a windy coastal road with blue water, small beaches, and assorted birds lining the route. The end of the peninsula housed a royal albatross colony and the winds were perfect for the birds to be out and flying. We saw several elegant white and black albatross with enormous wing spans soar directly over our head. They make flying look so fun and easy.

After watching the albatross, we headed back along the same flat coastal road at a gentle pace... this time fighting against winds in our face. As we approached Dunedin, we hopped onto a bike path lined with giant telephone poles... one of which jumped right into mally's path, caught her handle bar, and took her down (uh-oH!). Luckily, Mally is too tough for the telephone pole. She came away with just a couple scratches and a wheel slighly out of true. The bike shop fixed her wheel within minutes and we washed the scrapes clean so mally and her bike are all back together again (yaY!).

Tomorrow we bus out of Dunedin and up to Christchurch for our last few days in New Zealand...