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Published: October 21st 2012
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We departed from Franz Josef and headed to Wanaka stopping off on the way at Lake Matheson for another walk. Imediately after checking into our hostel we played mini golf which it turnes out im shite at, and then we plodded along to an irish bar to watch some more rugby. Sat in the bar all i can think about is the fact that tomorrow im doing the nevis 134m bungy jump followed by the nevis swing. The highest bungy in new zealand & largest swing in the world!
Supprised I managed to sleep that night but I did fine somehow.
The big day. We're really doing it! I'm actually going to experience the biggest bungy jump in New Zealand, the home of the bungy jump! Holy cow. Before I left home I remember telling people how I'd be doing a bungy jump and sky dive. It never really occured to me that I'd actually have to do it at some point. Well now is that day. I've gotta do this or I'll look like a pussy. Why did I come here again? Ohh shit. Sean, one of the lads in our group had signed up to do the trilogy.
This is the 3 nevis bungys in and around Queenstown so we first stopped off at the original AJ Hacket bridge bungy site to watch Sean throw himself off a bridge and fall 40 meters to the river below. Now this looked terrifying enough. Hold on a sec, this is only 40 meters, I've got to jump 134! That's more than 3 times the hight! Weiredly by this point though I was becoming more excited than nervous.
Well I was excited until we got to the canyon where I would be jumping.
Ok this is no longer funny. We arrived on site, entered a building where we got harnessed up and weighed and proceeded to the cable car which would scoot us across to a station hanging by a few cables over the middle of the canyon. This is where it hit us. Looking down through the glass bottom reality hit. This is a big drop, very big. Sean jumped first followed by Donal, Pat, Joe and then I was up.
By this point I didn't know how to feel so I just tryed to ignore the prospect of what I was about to do. I sat down while
they attached the bungy cord and they took some rather horrible photos of me looking slightly ill, hence I never paid for the photos, and then I stood up and shuffled my way to the edge. The way they do this next bit is rather good really. Well about as easy as they could make jumping 134m into a canyon. They don't give you time to think. It happened very quickly. "Look at the camera, 3...2...1... Jump, and I was gone.
You simply just can't explain how it feels to freefall so I'm not going to try, it needs to be experience first hand. Well I'll try to explain. Have you ever experience a falling sensation whilst dreaming in your sleep, now take that and extend it to 7-8 seconds before waking up. When I hit the bottom I bounced back up roughly half way and then experienced a few seconds of weightlessness before beginning a second freefall. After the second bounce I had to grab and pull a tag attached to my left leg which released me from hanging upside down and spun me back upright for the ascent, which seemed to take forever. Nice views though so I
was happy. Next the swing, thats right, one after another. This is going to be a walk in the park though compared to the jump so I'm excited about this. Besides you don't have to throw yourself off, they do it for you.
We hopped back onto the cable car and cable-carred??? our way back onto solid land, walked back into the main building, removed the harness and got weighed again for the swing. 2kg I lost somehow. What?!? Maybe I did shit myself. We walked over to a floating platform where we would be taken for another ride, got harnessed up again and watched each other be swung 300 meters across the same canyon. Pat and Joe went for the upside down option and I was next. I decided to go sat upright like a playground swing. I regret not going upside down now as it wasn't as extreme as I thought sat upright. However they did try to trick me. The guy who released me said he was going to try something different with me. Huh, you what? He told me to grab and pull the little safety bungy cord to my left which I know isn't going to do anything. As he asked me to I did, I'm suspended over a canyon here, I'm going to do as they bloody well tell me. Nothing happened. "You gotta pull it harder than that mate". So I did and once again nothing happened. I then turned to my side to say what the hell are you trying to achieve here. As I did, facing the wrong way, the fucker released me. Flying through the air towards the opposite wall off the canyon at speed is fun. Really fun, but when you're spinning aswell slightly from left to right because you were facing the wrong way, it becomes almost disorientating. What a laugh though. Once again though it seemed to take a life time to be winched back to the start. I thought a one point they were going to leave me there hanging forever.
Anyway, that was all finally over. I've done it, now lets get back onto that bus, get out of here and get ready for a celabratory piss up tonight.
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