Piper, a storeman, decided to bring his girlfriend, Rosie Abbate, across the Tasman, and was delighted to discover their trip coincided with Sunday's Dunedin marathon.
"My girlfriend and I decided to check out New Zealand, as we've never been there before," Piper said from his home in the suburb of Seaford.
"After discovering that the Dunedin marathon would be running at the same time as our visit, we couldn't resist fitting it in to our plans."
A football fanatic in his younger days, Piper (43) found age caught up with him in competitive football and he took up running for fitness, competing in fun runs and half marathons.
The Dunedin event will be his second full marathon.
He has been champing at the bit to do a second after realising he could have run much better than the 3hr 50min he managed at his first attempt.
"The last 15km, I felt I could run for another 42km. I still had plenty of juice left in the tank," he said of his first marathon.
"But my aim is to just finish the marathon and enjoy the sights and sounds of Dunedin. Time is but a secondary aspect of why I run."
He is looking forward to having Abbate cheering him on from the Taieri Gorge excursion train that will travel alongside the course on its way to Port Chalmers.
Piper runs regularly with his Siberian huskies, dogs he trains for competition in the winter months on both dirt and snow tracks.
His other form of training is what he describes as "boot camp", where he sets the alarm for 5am to train before work.
"Just getting to work is a marathon in itself," he joked about the Melbourne traffic.
