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Captain Tom's Voyage of Discovery
Kia ora!
I am currently in a lovely and warm internet café in cold, cold, cold Queenstown. There isn't anything too exciting to report from me. As its winter over here, the whole town is pretty much geared up to the hounds of skiers and snowboarders which have descended. I will not be joining them as I have neither the burning desire nor the $$$ to spend a day going arse first down a mountain. Hmmm how else can I occupy my time.....
Well my group rocked in to Queenstown on Monday evening and we checked in to our swanky lake side hotel. Much to our delight, we learned that we got half price drinks at the hotel bar as well as free access to the hotel spa! Woooo! However, I was in no mood to drink on that night as the next day I would need to be at my mental prime. The reason being that I had decided, along with the Danish duo, to entrust my life to a latex cord not once...not twice...but three times. Yes ladies and gentlemen: The AJ Hackett bungy jump 'thrilogy'!!!
After rather nervously eating my breakfast (and having my third trip to the toilet that day) I met Erik and Soren at our pick up point and off we went to jump number 1: The Kawarau Bridge, 43m high. After checking in (and going to the toilet once more) the three of us ended up talking to an American man, who was also going to jump, and his wife. Did I mention he was over 70? His wife became our unofficial cheer leader for the next hour and after posing for a few pictures with the couple and an Irish man in a superman costume, we headed to the bridge. I didn't really have time to get too nervous as no sooner had I got on the bridge I was having my legs strapped together (by a towel I should point out!!!!) and perching on a ledge 43m above the river. 3....2....1....BUNGY!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! Jesus, I don't think I have sworn so much in all my life as I did in those few seconds of freefall. After watching Erik, Soren and Russ (the American) follow in my footsteps we all congratulated ourselves and laughed at each others jump videos. But laugh time was over as the next jump was the king of all bungy jumps: the 134 m Nevis High wire. My Lonely Planet guide claims that one extreme sport magazine rates it as the second most extreme activity in the world. Oh s***!
The good people at AJ Hackett Bungy have certainly done everything in their power to make the build up to the Nevis jump the most s*** scary thirty minutes of your life. Instead of jumping from a nice stable bridge, you are jumping from a pod suspended about 150m above a small river surrounded by huge cliff faces. To get from the drop off point to the jump pod, you have to go on some unbelievably basic cable car which swings itself unnecessarily towards the pod. Once you arrive at the pod, if you couldn't be more nervous at this point, you realise that most of the floor is made of glass. What a great view of a 150m drop!!!!! Thanks to my overindulgent appetite, I was to be the number two jumper of the day. After sitting in silence for the next five minutes I was summoned to the chair of doom..... Now if you have seen the picture of me sitting in the chair (proudly wearing my England shirt) you may be fooled in to believing that I was in fact quite calm. Hell no! Once the first jumper had been winched back up to the pod (I had manged to ignore/mentally block out his jump) I found my self, once again, standing on some small platform with my toes dangling over the edge. The key difference with this occasion was that it was about three times higher than my last. 3..2..1..BUNGY!!!! Woooo! Less swearing this time!
The final bungy in the 'thrilogy' was going to be a piece of cake compared to the Nevis: The 47m Ledge Bungy. What made this one different though is that first of all you were actually in the middle of Queenstown (well 400m above), you are harnessed around the waist and not the legs and also you can do it a night time. Nerves were replaced by excitement for this jump. Instead of simply jumping off the platform from a standing position, you can take a run up for this jump and literally throw yourself off! Awesome! After doing just that, I found myself dangling about 350m above Queenstown admiring the view of the town at night. When I get sent the pictures for this jump, you will all be able to see what a view it was! The best bit about this jump was that I got to do it twice as the DVD recording hadn't worked. 4 jumps in one day: beat that James!!!
Well, what else can you do after a day like that? Go and get absolutely smashed. I will save that one for another entry...
Tom x
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