Bungee Jumping: A Pricey Lesson In Lunacy
Queenstown, New Zealand - The brochure for this South Pacific island-nation should probably read, “Come to New Zealand, visit our historical landmarks and jump off them head first.” In Queenstown, on the South Island of New Zealand, where commercial bungee jumping began, you’ll be hard pressed to find a bridge in the area without one of these giant rubber bands attached to it.
This is largely due to A.J. Hackett, the P.T. Barnum of the adventure tourism world. The only difference between A.J. and P.T. is that in addition to being a talented promoter, Hackett just might be a complete lunatic. The sport had its humble commercial beginnings on the 143-foot Kawarau Suspension Bridge here in 1988 after Hackett bungeed himself off the Eiffel Tower (illegally) the year before. He has since bungeed off several other silly tall things - often calibrating the elastic jump so he could touch his hand to the ground - and has used this “science” to service over 500,000 bungee fanatics. Hackett is now franchising out like McDonald’s.
With so many bridges to jump from in Queenstown (about 200 miles southwest of Christchurch), I finally decided to leap off the Skipper’s Canyon bridge (229 feet) because, well, the marketing director at A.J. Hackett’s company said I could jump for free. And I highly recommend you get A.J. to pay for your bungee jump too, because the only thing that seems more outrageous than flinging yourself off a bridge is paying someone (about $85) to let you do it.
I knew immediately this sport wouldn’t go over as well in the States when one of the Hackett staffers weighed me and wrote my weight in big numbers on the back of my hand with a permanent marker. When the 10 other jumpers in my group showed up, each with their weights written across the backs of their hands, it was like the first day of some sort of sadistic diet clinic. Meeting them and shaking hands felt a bit odd: “Hi, Tom, nice to meet you. I see you weigh 95 kilos.”
A staffer named Nicko drove us in a refurbished army truck over a fairly treacherous road to the bungee launch pad. We didn’t actually drive all the way because one portion of the cliff-hugging dirt road had a huge crack down the middle and was about to collapse any moment. Nicko didn’t want to risk the truck, but assured us it was fine to walk across, provided we did so quickly.
I was the first one to jump. Not by choice. They called out my number: “Hey, the guy who weighs 82 kilos is first!”
Jeremy and Spud, the outgoing bungee operators, gave me some background information while I prepared myself by taking all the loose change out of my pockets.
“We used to give free jumps to people who went naked,” said Jeremy.
“Why did you stop?” I asked.
“It got boring. Everyone wanted to do it,” Jeremy replied.
“But we decided to call it quits after this one fat Australian guy jumped. It was just too disgusting,” Spud added.
The bungee cord may have just been a giant rubber band but at least I was assured it was being attached to my ankles with a sturdy beach towel. Of course, that was not all they used. They also employed a small piece of nylon cord about the width of masking tape. What was there to worry about?
To be honest, I wasn’t all that worried up to this point. I was doing an amazing job of thinking about anything but throwing myself off a suspension bridge. But when I stepped to the edge of the platform and looked down at the river WAY BELOW, I began to panic. I felt it first in my knees. Then it quickly moved up my legs and across my chest. A few more seconds and it had found its way into my lungs, moved up to my trachea and surfaced through my mouth in the form of a sentence: “I don’t think I want to jump.”
“Sure ya do, mate,” said Jeremy, who was (a) safely fastened to the bridge with a harness and (b) not interesting in listening to another whiny travel writer. I weighed my natural instinct against Jeremy’s advice and the embarrassment of backing out at the last minute in front of everybody, then drove every rational thought from my brain and leapt off the bridge, head first.
My father had always given me a hard time about not working in “the real world” but now it was coming at me at 9.82 meters per second. I felt the drop in my stomach. I had my mouth open, but my primal scream was silent. I stretched the bungee until I was within a few yards of the river, squinting a bit to keep my eyeballs from ejecting and landing in the drink.
Then, nearly as quickly as I had come down, I started going back up. I felt the drop in my stomach, then weightlessness, then another drop in my stomach. I was completely disoriented. My views were alternating between a spinning bridge, a spinning river, and my shirt, which had come untucked from my pants and was falling over my head.
After a few increasingly shorter bounces, I was lowered upside down to a waiting jet boat. Just as I reached the boat I noticed all the blood in my body had collected in my head. I grabbed the pole Nicko extended and he pulled me aboard. He unfastened the bungee cord and beach towel and took me to shore. I stepped off the rocking boat onto rocking land, which made me realize I was doing the rocking. My body was pumping enough adrenaline to fuel the Space Shuttle.
I watched the others jumpers from below as my endorphins came back down from orbit. A few jumpers went tandem, a few went backward and several more than once, for an additional $25 per leap. One Danish girl fell in love with the experience and jumped three times. She would have jumped a few more times if she hadn’t run out of money.
From the time you leave the bridge until the time you touch land again is about 30 seconds. After Las Vegas, it’s probably the quickest way to spend your money. But as A.J. Hackett claims, “It’s a memory that will be with you forever.”