In January 2010, my awesome b-school travel crew arrived at the Kawarau Bridge Bungy at 4pm wanted to take the leap. They didn’t have any spots left and we were leaving the next morning. 10 years later, I returned for my chance to leap. After a night of reading safety reviews, I learned 2 things (1) its safe! (2) don’t jump like a sissy.
After signing in and getting weighed 3 times, you are forced to wait and watch people jump for an hour. Again, the lessons are 1) if you jump feet first, you get whipped around and it looks painful 2) its not easier to jump the second or third time the guy counts down. I made a pact with a few of the people around me that if any of us didn’t jump on the first countdown, we would all booooo them. Nothing like some peer pressure from complete strangers to push you off a bridge…
Once you’re next the process is tight. Every check is done twice and nothing is left to chance. The guy asked me, “Do you want to touch the water?” and with unsure response, I responded, “No?” which was met with a, “Really?!”. I settled for a “Touch the water, Lite.” If I jump down, I’ll get me hands and maybe the top of my head and if I jump out, I likely wont touch.
So the moment came and you can watch how the rest played out in the video…
It was an awesome, thrilling experience, but one that I don’t need to do again. Bryce was watching and got really upset when he saw me on the platform and then jumping off. For the next 24 hours, he kept saying, “DaDa went bum bum.”
