"An Around-the-World-Ticket for Two, Please."

Elastic Fantastic, Brown stained pant-astic!

Posted by Sarah O'Neill , Friday, 22 April 2011 23:13

Here is Ben's latest blog offering, about the day he did a bungy jump! It has been nearly three weeks in the making, but better late than never!

When in Queenstown the adventure capital of the world, it would be rude not to partake in some of the sedate activities on offer! I am an adrenaline junkie and will do anything, so on Saturday 16th April I decided it was time to throw myself off something high attached to a bit of elastic! You have three choices in Queenstown; the ledge bungy, the Kawaru bungy (both 40 odd metres) and the Nevis bungy (134 metres) I wanted to do it properly so opted to do the Nevis bungy! I was booked on the 1320 bus. Its a 40 minute drive through the mountains on some very trecherous roads. I've forgotton to mention the my sidekick 'Shit scared Sarah' was with me, she is a massive wimp so was just coming along to watch. Or so she thought! Ha Ha Ha Ha Haaaaaaaaaaaaaa! More on that later! We arrived at Bungy HQ and got fitted with our harnesses, then we got weighed! I have put on 8 pounds since we arrived in Australia six months ago! I know this because I was weighed at Wet and Wild on the Gold Coast to make sure I wasn't too heavy for their water slide! What a heffer! Those Aussie pies were damn good though! Had an amazing one in NZ today for that matter! Venison! Mmmmmmmm, again more on that some other time! So I've got my harness on, I've been weighed, they write your weight on your hand, just to remind you how fat you've got! Bastards! We were then sent out to the edge of the gorge. There is a cable car in the middle of the gorge, we arrived just in time to see someone jump! My goodness that's a long way down! Once the group that had just jumped had arrived back, my group was sent over in this little cable car! Everyone in the group was doing the jump! Oh hang on a minute, Sarah wasn't! Thats because she's a wimp! We arrived to the car in the middle of the gorge, it had a glass bottom so you could see exactly how high you were. War of the Worlds music was playing, which was nice. They send you off the edge in weight order, I was the forth fattest so had to wait a little while. It was good to see everyone was a nervous as I was! After about ten minutes it was my turn. They get you to sit in a chair attach some stuff around your legs, wasn't paying much attention at this point. Then they stand you up, get you to smile for the camera, shuffle you to the edge then count down 3...2...1 go. I must add at this point that it was always my plan to stand on the edge for a while and take in the view. This did not happen! I just Jumped! No goodbye for 'Shit scared Sarah' I just went. I'm glad Sarah got it on video because my mind goes pretty blank at this point. Must be the adrenaline! I do remember that it was amazing and just the adrenaline rush I was looking for! Definately better than sky diving!
Bungy DONE!
Still floating in my adrenaline haze, someone said I could do It again for $70! Thats a quarter of the normal price so there was no way I was missing out on that! Or so I thought. They same lady then tells me that I could do the canyon swing as a tandem attached to 'Triple S' (Shit scared Sarah!) Triple S was surprisingly willing to do this, I'm not sure she actually knew what she had signed herself up for. So off we went to another platform hanging out into the canyon. I had some idea what we were about to do, Triple S clearly did not! A canyon swing is basically exactly what it says on the tin! A bloody massive swing! What Triple S didn't realise was that you freefall for 80 metres before you do the swing bit! So they attached us up to bits via our harnesses, I went backwards so I could enjoy the spectacle close up! For all of you that have seen 'The Video'! you know that Sarah was the spectacle! I'm sure the people spectating thought we were being executed or something. The bloke in charge was good, he was adding to Triple S' fear by prolonging her agony! Telling us to smile for camaras and telling her something wasn't attached. Finally he pressed his button and off we went. It was pretty cool, not a patch on the bungy though! Sarah made lots of noises and informed me that she thought she was going to die. They hoisted us back up and off we went to look at the photos. I should probably say at this point that Triple S will no longer be refered to as such! I was quite impressed that she did it!
So that was enough trying to kill ourselves for one day so off we went on the bus to Queenstown for a well deserved beer and a Ferg Burger. FERG BURGERS ARE AMAZING! I had a Ferg Burger, basically a posh beef burger. Sarah had a Wild Fiordland Deer Burger and plum sauce, aptly named the 'Sweet Bambi' she says its the best burger she's ever had. I would question this because NO BURGER will ever beat the mighty BIG MAC! FACT
Then we went home and went to bed
THE END!
Ben

ps. if you want to see what we did go to http://www.bungy.co.nz/the-nevis