The day I looked FEAR in the eye!

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A new country - New Zealand:
After our wonderful times in Australia, it was time to get excited about the rest of our amazing adventure; starting in New Zealand. A nice easy and on time flight saw us arrive in Auckland, in New Zealand’s North Island at 11pm, yet to book ourselves a hostel. We phoned a couple of places from my Lonely Planet guide and a place was booked for us at a Base backpackers; knowing form our previous visits to such hostels it would be a cool and nice place.
We didn’t really have much intention of staying in Auckland too long as we were very keen to get ourselves to Queenstown, the ‘extreme sports’ capital of New Zealand, perhaps the world?! We were also very keen to get there before the ski season finished as here we are heading towards spring.
A couple of days were spent in Auckland to get our head around the New Zealand ways; money, food, etc. Then we set out to get ourselves to Queenstown A.S.A.P. We had a long conversation with a girl on the travel desk at Base and $865 later we came away with a full bodied 7 week plan for exploring our new country.

THE PLAN:
- Fly to Queenstown where we would spend 2 weeks for partying and snowboarding
- 5 weeks in a camper van to drive from Queenstown back up to Auckland.

This really is where the adventure is going to begin rather than end!

Our flight to Queenstown departed at 11am the next morning (Thursday 7th).
As we flew into Queenstown the scenery flying in through the snow capped mountains was incredible and landing on a small air strip surrounded by huge mountain ranges was almost unreal. It didn’t take long before we were checked into a hostel after a shuttle ride with a very friendly and flirtatious older lady called June.


Friday.
HERE’S WHERE IT ALL STARTS!
The next couple of days weren’t really that exciting but on Friday night after a box of goon and a few drinks around the local bars I found myself sat on a sofa with a girl who was very keen to get me to do a bungee jump, as she worked for AJ Hackett the biggest bungy company here (AJ Hackett being the founder of this crazy activity).

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Matt and I had seen a write up in the Lonely Planet guide of a bungy jump called NEVIS on the flight from Cairns to Melbourne months ago. Matt had said to me at the time that we had to do it. All this time we both had this niggling thought in the back of our minds that we had to do it once we were in Queenstown. The advertising for bungee jumping here is like nothing I’ve seen before, it’s everywhere, so it wasn’t easy to ignore.
*

She was so keen in fact, to get me to do a jump that she offered to give me two passes on the ‘NEVIS bungy’ jump on Sunday afternoon. In a drunken manner I accepted the kind offer thinking more of money saving than actually signing up to do it.
I thought nothing more of it until the next morning when I had a message on my phone asking me if I was still up for it. I told Matt the story as he lay hung-over, head on his pillow and got his acceptance before replying to say we’d do it!


Saturday.
THE FEAR BEGINS!
Most of Saturday consisted of Matt and myself (Chris refused to have anything to do with bungy jumping and I was beginning to agree with him!) talking about the jump and getting pretty stressed out about the whole ordeal.
That night we went out for a few beers but with our stomachs doing twists and turns, it wasn’t easy to drink. The night continued and even Chris began to feel ‘the fear’.
“I know there’s something not right when you stop talking Si!”
Every time I saw myself stood on the platform to jump my palms became instantly sweaty with pure adrenaline and fear.


Sunday.
I’M CONFRONTED WITH FEAR HIMSELF!
After a night of recurring bungy jumps; waking every couple of hours with wet palms and feet and a huge feeling of fright in my stomach, my alarm sounded and I woke knowing the time had come. Matt looked over with terror in his eyes and I mirrored his look across the room.
We were unsurprisingly quiet whilst we sat and tried to eat our toast, only managing a couple of bites from our two pieces each. It was 11.20am. We were due to check in at AJ Hackett at 11:45am, which really isn’t a long time in which to visit the toilet twice but I managed it.
We packed our things together talking quietly, shaking like two very small thin leaves in the wind and walked out the door saying our farewells to Chris lying comfortably in his bed, a place I would trade to be in a flash.

Walking down the street we couldn’t help talk about the various techniques and ways in which we could jump and just attack the challenge that lay ahead of us. One thing I really didn’t want was to be the last to jump, as the wait would be horrific.
We checked in after receiving our ticket slyly from the girl I’d spoken to on Friday, confirming a $200 saving, each!!!
It also confirmed that we now had to go through with it… great!

After a long wait we were eventually called to the shuttle bus that would take me to confront my fear.
It was 45minute drive that felt like a lifetime and as we began to slowly ascend, snaking up a large mountain side, my fear of heights began to realise. The thoughts going through my head of the jump were quiet obviously very similar to the others on the bus as everyone sat on the bus in near silence.
The driver then tells us to look out of the right hand side of the bus to see a tiny little cable car suspended in between a large canyon… The NEVIS Highwire Bungy.

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THE NEVIS HIGHWIRE BUNGY.
‘Is it a UFO or a scene from Dr No? Come out and decide for yourself. You’re standing on the edge of a purpose-built structure hanging from 380m long cables which span the width of the valley. Your greatest personal challenge yet.’
‘If you want the biggest, here it is - 440feet (134metre’s) with an 8 second free-fall, above the rugged Nevis river.’
‘The highest bungy in the Southern hemisphere, the 3rd biggest in the whole world and the only one to be suspended from a cable car.’
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I exited the shuttle bus in silence, pretty much white with fear and the NEVIS bungy crew began strapping people into harnesses. The thoughts going through my head were too many to contemplate.
I had pretty much been waiting 4 months to do this and now it was here, that’s way too long to think about doing such a thing; it should be a spontaneous venture!
One of the crew came over to strap me in, only to find my huge frame didn’t fit in the first harness so had to get a bigger one. Any little thing that seemed to be a problem I instantly didn’t like, can’t imagine why?!
I was now ready, shakily filming the whole thing holding the camera in my fear soaked hand.
As we were lead out to the little cable car that would transport us across to the main cable car I learnt that the heaviest are to jump first to test the cable for the little ones, haha! Eek! Well as I’m sure many of you know I’m not small so I knew that I’d be somewhere near the front of the queue to leap 134m on a rubber rope towards a rugged river beneath, wonderful!
They were cool enough to let Matt join me in the transport car across the canyon, which in itself had me scared with its bread basket style construction, so he could film and photograph the occasion and then vice versa when he jumped.
Now I’m traveling closer and closer with only crate style metal under my feet above the river being pulled slowly to the NEVIS cable car from which I could see one person leaping from the platform and plummeting at high speed only to become a speck at the end of a long white bungy cord.

“OH MY GOD!!!!!”
The small transport cable car hits the side of the main cable car and we step onto it. It was then a case of waiting until your name was called. My mouth became drier and drier as I watched people jump from the platform and practically disappear into the canyon, before being hoisted back up to the cable car.
One of the crew then calls me over to strap me into a couple of fluorescent ankle harnesses. My time gets ever closer and the thought’s of jumping (or backing out) speed through my brain, unable to contemplate anything or even speak as Matt films me asking a couple of questions. A shy and terrified smile was about all I could manage.
The waiting around looking through the glass floor of the cable car increased the stress and sick feeling thumping through my veins.
“Simon” The main member of the crew shouts.
Well here it is I thought, I have to do this I know I will feel unbelievable once I’ve done it.
I walk towards him and he sits me in a chair with the jumping platform behind me to my right. My legs are sat up in front of me whilst he attaches the necessary equipment and buckles, not to mention a long thick white rubber cord. He asks me a couple of questions like
“Have you done anything interesting this morning?”
“Mostly sat on the toilet” I told him.
He tells me to smile at the camera in front of my and then says to wave goodbye as my time had was now imminent.

I spin myself around with the cord attached firmly to my ankles and stand from the seat and begin shuffling towards the edge of the platform, which is no bigger than a piece of A3 paper.
The idea of not looking down was definitely a good one but impossible as you have to be able to see where the edge of the platform actually is.
I focused firmly on the platform rather than the immense drop beneath it and shuffled, petrified, watching my feet edge closer to the drop.
As I shuffled I was thinking, there’s no need to do this, you can back out at anytime?! But then on the other hand why not do it?! …..you know you’ve got to do it!!!

So here it is, I’m stoud looking one of my greatest fears directly in the eye and down into it’s very soul. I’m in position, so I raise my vision out to the mountain in front of me (my ‘happy place’ according to the crew) I feel he’s got a good grip of my harness behind me then ….
5………4………….3………..2………..1................JUMP!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
…..So, with no hesitation, I did…………………

....Plummeting at a ridiculous speed the river beneath me races closer and closer, the canyon walls flash past my peripheral vision, my body becomes stiff, my stomach is tensed, my arms outstretched, my face slapped with fright and 8 of the most exhilarating seconds of my life are suspended at the end of a now taught bungy cord and I’m bounced back up away from the river. I then become completely weightless, like I’m floating a truly unreal and amazing feeling, and then I begin to gain speed, descending once again towards the river bed. This time my arms are flailing all over the place doing a perfect breast-stroke swim technique through the air. The bungy cord becomes taught for the second time and I’m sprung upwards, this time able to enjoy the most amazing feeling of weightlessness and swear…A LOT about how unbelievable it was!
I then have to sit up towards the cable car and pull a rip-cord on my left leg, which at the time didn’t want to come loose, so after one double handed yank, my legs drop and I’m in a sitting position able to enjoy the view and the breath-taking experience before me.
I am then pulled back up towards the cable car in amazement of what I have just done. As I reach out attached by my harness to the cable car I am absolutely buzzing and speech has definitely returned as I express to the people who haven’t jumped how incredible it was; “something else!!!!” I exclaim over and over. Was it worth the stress prior to the jump… YES, every second of it!
Truly the most amazing thing I have ever done in my whole life and something that I will re-live forever (probably in nightmares, haha!)
I remember seeing bungy jumps on TV at home and saying “I would never ever do that” well I’ve just proved that with a bit of encouragement and a ‘if you do it, I’ll do it’ philosophy anything is achievable. I’ve always been terrified of heights and this jump goes against everything I’ve ever believed in, now I’m 100% stoked and buzzing!!!!!

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Photos

Begining of the 8 second freefall
look how much bungy cord there is slack that needs to eventually become taught!
Look for the red ankle strap to find me.

Comments

[MUM]

I'm just so glad you're alive to tell us the tale! Well done, you'll be the only one in this family to do it - that's a cert! Mum x