Molly's Right!

When I was in Auckland for the Big Day Out I bought a ticket for the Nevis Bungy jump in Queenstown. I bought it in Auckland because I knew that if I waited until I was in Queenstown to buy it I would chicken out. Up until about a month ago the Nevis Bungy Jump in Queenstown was the tallest bungy jump in the world at 134m(440ft). It was created by the guy who created the whole idea of bungy jumping AJ Hacket. In fact bungy jumping was created in Queenstown so what better place to do it. And since my motto is go big or go home I had to do the biggest.

So to get to the place where I jumped we had to hop in a car and drive 45 minutes into the mountains. You actually jump from a cable car that is suspended between two cliffs and you get to the cable car via a gondola. I was so nervous last night that I had to have a few drinks which turned into a lot of drinks because it turns out that everytime we told the bar tender that my Kiwi bus driver has big boobs we would get free beer until the keg runs out. I booked the jump for 8am because I wanted to get it over with. Anyone who has waited in line with me for a roller coaster knows how anxious I can get so I didn't want to spend a whole day worrying about the jump. By 9:30 I was harnessed in and in the cable car. Let me tell you, 134m is HIGH. We were suspended over a river that was so clear you could see the rocks at the bottom. I knew no one in the cable car with me but that didn't stop me from freaking everyone out. I started mumbling to myself how stupid this is and asking myself why I was doing it and then I turned to the other people and asked them if they realized how stupid we were all being right now. I was about to chicken out when the bungy guy chose to tell me that there were no refunds. So I was jumping.

I was third to go and the first girl. They have you sit down and they start strapping you ankles together and hooking everything up(oy I am getting anxious just writing this down!). They asked me if I had ever done this before and I laughed and said no and I will never do it again. Everyone was looking at me and I could tell by their faces that I must have had a very worried look on my face. Then I stood up and hobbled(because my ankles were now connected to bungy cord) over to the edge. Some choice expletives escaped my mouth and then I made the mistake of looking down. I stopped dead in my tracks and said there's no way I can do this it is too guy. Luckily the guy told me to just look straight ahead which helped. I hobbled to the edge and started bugging out because I wanted to hold onto something as I jumped. I had a shoulder harness on and asked the guy if it was ok if I held onto it for dear life as I fell. It was all a go and then the countdown from five began. The thing is at this point, even if I didn't jump I would have been pushed. They don't mess around. So as they said one I jumped. Albeit I didn't jump gracefully with my arms out. I jumped with my arms gripping my harness like they grip the shoulder pads of my backpack and my legs never fully unbent. It looked like I fell sitting.

Yes I did scream and it was loud. The freefall lasts for about 8 seconds and you actually bungy twice since the nevis is so high. You rebound back up about 40 m after the intial 134m drop and then you fall the 40m again (the first bungy was only 43m fyi). By the end of the 8 seconds my scream of fear had turned into a "whoo hoo!" scream. The fun wasn't yet over. Because the Nevis is so high they can't lower you down. Instead after you jump you have to be raised back up to the cable car. So here I am hanging upside down. There is a cord that you can pull so your legs are released and you get pulled up in a sort of sitting up position. But my hands were firmly glued to my harness so I just hung there spinning around repeating to myself "pull me up pull me up pull me up." At this point I had to keep my eyes closed because all of the spinning around was not helping my stomach. Finally I was pulled back up the 134m upside down and deposited back onto the cable car. I immediately went over to the trash bucket and thought I was going to throw up. The fact that the cable car swings after every jump wasn't helping things either so they put me onto the gondola and I arrived safely onto land where I watched my dvd and finally felt relieved that I had did it and that it was all over.

I will never bungy again. It was a once in a lifetime experience that I loved but will never ever do again. I got my free t-shirt and I splurged on a cute sweatshirt and that's it. 8 seconds of freefall is a loooong time.

On a completely different note, before I left Wanaka I went to this place called Puzzle World. It is full of optical illusions but the best part is that the cafe had all of these mind games that we could do. So I sat there with my cup of coffee and played all of these great games. It reminded me of going to Northhampton and playing in the toy store there. Good times.

ps...I bungy jumped!!! Who would have thought I would ever do that? No worries. The rest of this trip will be spent with my feet planted on the ground (until I fly to Fiji).