May 29, 2009: Gloucester Cheese Rolling 2009

[glatt]

Originally Posted by Undertoad

My favorite IotDs, if I may say so m'self, are the ones that capture some weird festival, like the Spanish Tomatino or Delaware's Punkin Chunkin. Of course these festivals may suffer from success, and so it may be a mixed blessing to publicize them. The best answer is to start more such festivals.

I just learned that there is an annual one on Easter Island called Haka Pei. It looks like it's every February. Painted natives riding logs down a long steep grassy hill.
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Originally Posted by travel site

But the most amazing event is known as haka pei, the “banana slide.” Contestants slide down a steep hill while perched on two banana tree-trunks, lashed together. They lay face up on this contraption, their feet braced against a short crosspiece. The one who remains on his tree trunk and goes the farthest, wins. It is suicidal. The contestants wear only tiny hami, plus lots of feathers and body paint, and so they have no protection. Every year some participants end up in the island’s hospital with broken bones, or worse.