We originally planned to bungee (or bungy if you use the spelling the guy invented it used) on day 6 but the company, AJ Hackett, called and said they were filming that day. They were very accommodating at their in-person shop to reschedule us not only for a new day but to take their shuttle bus. But this meant we had to bungee jump sooner than we thought. I know it’s all the same but I was hoping to be mentally prepared for it, rather than feeling mostly jet lagged and like I was coming down with a cold.

AJ Hackett has all the bungee jumping in NZ and actually invented it commercially. AJ Hackett is an extreme sports aficionado who saw young men jumping from towers with vines tied around their ankles as a rite of passage in Vanuatu (an island in the Pacific).

AJ Hackett worked to design all the bungee jumping equipment we now use today including inventing the straps, safety gear, and cord. He then made a jump off the Eiffel Tower which helped promote his new sport.

The first commercial bungy jumping was at Kawarau Gorge off of a public bridge. I don’t think we realized how many random people would be there just watching, taking a break from their bike rides or walks.

We got picked up from their downtown location since we hadn’t rented a car yet. On the bus they have a promotional video that shows people in the late 1980s doing it. They also had a helpful fun fact that that bungy cords they manufacture are safely rated for 1,500 jumps but they retire them after 500 jumps. There has never been a fatality in the 38 years they’ve been operating and over 2 million jumps made. In fact the only people who have really gotten hurt bungy jumping wasn’t even AJ Hackett but a girl tripped and hit her face on the bridge, knocking some teeth out. So the jump master guy keeps his hand on your harness until the absolute last second to make sure you don’t do this. They also had secondary checks from the other employee there.

A fun fact about me is that I’m absolutely awful at numbers, just awful. So when I saw it was 43 meters at first I reduced it the way I reduce 5 kilometers into 3 miles, so I was like “heh, okay, 23 foot jump ain’t nothing”. Then later, with the jet lag I was like it’s a 50 foot jump, not even a thing. Pulling up on the bus and seeing the bridge for the first time made me wish my mathematical dyslexia had been caught much, much sooner as a child. 141 feet!?!

When we checked in they weighed us and put your weight in kilograms on your hand in permanent marker. On the other hand they write which bus you’re on and the picture number for the photographs. They weighed us again at the top of the bridge to double check for safety. They then fitted us with climbing harnesses which are clipped in, in case the foot part fails. They also had a place to put personal belongings at the top of the bridge because you obviously cannot take it with you. You wait in a line and watch other people do it which makes it a little more scary. You’re also able to look down for the first time.

At this point we both put our fitness tracking watches on because we wanted to a) see the fun little numbers try to figure out why we were “hiking” down so quickly but also b) wanting to see how high our heart rates were. I had a lot of expectation violations of thinking it was a little baby bungy and Chris had no expectations because I signed him up for it (consensually). So both of us were shocked looking down at the little raft that was going to pick us up after we jumped.

Chris said he wanted to go first so I watched my husband just jump off the bridge from behind. From where I was waiting I couldn’t even see down so I couldn’t see him fall or bounce. From my perspective he just looked like this:

They hauled his bungee cord and towel back up. Turns out the towel is a very critical part of bungee jumping. They fold it thin and then wrap it around your ankles to hold them in place, add a LOT of webbing wrapped around the towel in a special way and then clip it in. The towel adds bulk so your feet don’t slip out, stops a friction burn and also makes sure you don’t get bruised when the rope jerks. It is tight. While doing this they’re making conversation – mostly asking how you’re doing. My answer: “nervous” and did you want to try a water touch. They have a chart (not an exact science) that they can change the tension of the bungee so that you’ll hit the water just a little with your hands and get a little bungy baptism. I told them emphatically that I did not want to do this because it seemed more scary. When I got to the actual platform the guy really tried to get me to do it. They help you stand up because your legs are clipped together. Another guy helping the other jumping platform double checks all the straps and carabiners are correct then they have you start your little shuffle to the end of the platform. The jump master told me to try to get my toes to the edge did me in. This forced me to look down more than I wanted to and my brain did exactly what it’s supposed to do: it made me grip the little hand rail and decidedly made me not want to jump.

The jump master guy is literally trained in this and they talk people off the edge (literally) all the time. As a major anxiety girly I totally see the tricks later.

1) is standing up tall, just faking it is awesome for your confidence. So he has you stand up really tall and look straight forward with your arms out like Titanic.

2) He told me to just fall forward rather than diving (diving works for some people). This gave you a specific action rather than too many instructions

3) Then he has you wave to cameras and the crowd. You’re still standing up tall so this makes you look around and keeps you from looking down. You can tell who was feeling better with this side by side of Chris and I.

4) Counting down, for some reason, works on everyone. Next time you don’t want to do something, count yourself down from 3 and you will almost always go do it. Brains love a good count down. The jump master counts down from 5:

5: “I’m not going to jump”

4: “There’s no way this is way too fucking high”

3: “It’s going to be worse to unhook this stuff off me. I’m walking away and surrendering all that money?”

2: “what if I don’t jump at one? I saw a video of someone doing that, I hope I don’t do that”

1: “okay, just fall forward. That’s what he said to do, I can do that”.

So I fell forward. There’s that first bit of arc before you get the feeling of falling and you’re like, “yay I did it.” But then the stomach dropping feeling hits and I immediately regretted it. Chris swears he heard me say “Oh noooo” as I screamed all the way down. I was one of the cool kids that windmilled my arms the whole way down trying to grab on to something, anything. Chris went straight down like a stoic Greek god and I went down like a Charlie Chaplin skit.

When you finally hit the end of the rope you have a brief, “haha, I’m alive” but then round two starts, you bounce back up at the same speed that you fell down in. So now you get falling-in-reverse situation. So my “oh no” scream turned into “Fuck!”.

But then it got really fun. The bounces after this are really neat and then eventually you’re just swinging and swaying, getting to see the river and the canyon and gorge.

They lower you down and the two guys in the raft hold out a pole for you to grab on and you’re lowered into the raft. Within seconds your feet are free and you get to walk back up the hill. That’s it, you bungee’d.

Final data from the fitness watches, top speed was 24 mph and highest heartrate was 172.

We would 100% recommend this to anyone and were extremely close to doing it again at Taupo Bridge up north.