It was a few months prior to roaming around New Zealand when I had received a quick message from friends who were meeting us there to travel around the South Island. They were letting me know their intentions to do the famous Kawarau Bridge Bungy Jump. Naturally, they thought we may want to join them.
We knew that bungy jumping was a must-do adventure activity in New Zealand. And the Kawarau Bridge Bungy Jump is actually the first permanent commercial bungy jump in the world. The Kawarau Bridge Bungy Jump was created back in 1986 by Mr. AJ Hackett himself.
So Queenstown, New Zealand, is ground zero for where this extreme sport all began. If we were going to bungy jump anywhere in the world, what better place to do it than where it all started?
But my wife, Heather, and I had already discussed whether or not we were going to bungy jump while in NZ. We both wholeheartedly decided that this was something we were unquestionably NOT going to do.
We are thrill seekers at heart. We’ve done cage dives with great white sharks, gone parasailing over volcanos, and have even hung off the edge of the largest waterfall in the world at Devil’s Pool Victoria Falls.
Despite pursuing these crazy feats, the whole idea of bungy jumping seemed absolutely terrifying to us. There’s just something about throwing yourself from high off a bridge that doesn’t really click in my head. There was little desire from either of us to take the leap off of the Kawarau Bridge, or any other place in the world for that matter.
Yet somehow, I found myself on the edge of that bridge on the outskirts of Queenstown. And my bungy jump didn’t go particularly well. This blog recounts how this all happened, provides an AJ Hackett Kawarau Bridge Bungy Jump review, and shows how my jump went wrong.
The Message That Started It All
Then I got the message.
Our friends suggested that their timeslot might sell out soon and that we’d need to book now if we wanted to do it with them. The pressure was on to book it and a number of factors began to sway my once firm stance of not bungy jumping.
This Kawarau Bridge Bungy Jump was a once in a lifetime experience.
We would finally have friends joining us for a few days of our journey and it would be awesome to do this with them.
They were doing the bungy jump on Saint Patrick’s Day, so thoughts of triumphant drinks after the jump began to sound like a great way to spend the day in New Zealand.
And it was on the famous Kawarau Bridge Bungy Jump, the original!
With all of these different points swirling around in my head, fear of missing out began to set in more so than fear of jumping off a bridge.
It was now time to pull the trigger or risk not joining them on what could potentially be an epic experience.
My plan was to book it to secure the slot, just in case. Then I would cancel and get refunded when I decide not to go forward with it. So I quickly began to scour through the legal text of the booking site Viator, to see if they had a cancelation policy. There it was. There are no cancelation fees with their bookings if made at least 7 days prior to the tour date. That was good enough for me! My mindset was to book the Kawarau Bridge Bungy Jump now, have another month or two to decide if I actually wanted to go through with it, then cancel when I come to my senses.
This would give me time to thoroughly research the AJ Hackett Kawarau Bridge safety record, figure out if there’s been any deaths or accidents, and uncover a number of other bungy jumping stats, which would ultimately help me to decide to cancel.
Heather still wisely said “hell no!” But I went ahead booked myself that 2:00 pm slot to bungy jump off New Zealand’s famed Kawarau Bridge. I was already terrified at this moment. By the time I hit the submit button on the payment page, my palms were dripping in sweat onto the keyboard, just thinking about what the jump would be like.
Did I just succumb to the ultimate proverbial peer pressure? “If your friends all jump off a bridge, would you jump too?”
Yup, I think I just did.
The Day of the Kawarau Bridge Bungy Jump, Queenstown
So while we were sleep deprived and crossing the International Dateline on a series of flights to New Zealand, that seven-day cancelation period came and went. At some point, once our flight had landed, I realized I had missed the 7-day window to cancel the bungy jump.
I came to the harsh realization that I would be very reluctantly doing the Kawarau Bridge Bungy Jump after all. Shit!
The jump day had come. It was Saint Patrick’s Day in Queenstown and I was terrified. Our friends Eric and Kristen would be joining me for the insanity while Heather would join us at the jump site to watch the madness unfold. Eric was excited for what was to come, while Kristen was more so in my camp. It was a camp of pure terror.
From Queenstown, you take a bus ride about 30 minutes to the Kawarau Bridge Bungy Jump site. While rock music blared through the speakers trying to get us pumped as we drove through the always-scenic New Zealand countryside, none of us spoke a word. We were frozen with fear.
Then we got to the Kawarau Bridge. It was all smiles and excitement from the AJ Hackett staff as we got weighed-in, suited-up and signed our lives away with some last minute paperwork.
We watched a few other bungy jumpers go first. Some people hesitated for minutes before finally taking the plunge. Others chickened-out entirely.
Actually, a lot of people chickened-out. We watched person after person spend several minutes on the ledge. Then they ultimately walked off the Kawarau Bridge rather than jumping.
This series of events repeated itself many times as I nervously watched on. It seemed like a perfectly good waste of $200 NZD to me.
If there was anything to help motivate me to make this terrifying jump, it’s that you don’t get your money back if you don’t go through with it. So those people who chickened out just paid $200 NZD to walk onto a bridge.
We are very thrifty when it comes to travel (a constant theme of this blog), so I was going to be damn sure that I would not lose out on the $200 NZD that I paid to do this jump. Now fear of wasting $200 was beginning to overcome fear of jumping from the Kawarau Bridge. It was great motivation.
Taking the Plunge: The Kawarau Bridge Bungy Jump
Walking out onto Kawarau Bridge felt like walking down death row. Many spectators watched on and giggled in amusement. This was a spectacle they would watch but would never do themselves. Their laughs felt cruel and unfair.
I gladly let my daring friends do the jump first. I was happy to have the opportunity to not only more closely scrutinize safety procedures, but it also left me with a few extra moments to contemplate my life.
They would do a tandem jump off of the Kawarau Bridge. The AJ Hackett crew on the bridge edge eased them into their harnesses. It all happened so quickly.
And they were not going to back down like so many had done before them. “Three, two, one, BUNGY!”
They dove down into the gorge with ease and showed picture-perfect form. They looked like old pros. Even the once-visibly-frightened Kristen suddenly showed no signs of fear. She lept gracefully off the bridge with her partner-in-crime like two synchronized swimmers.
As they say in New Zealand, “Good on them!”
Great. Now it was my turn to make the 43-meter bungy jump from the Kawarau Bridge.
I reluctantly got into my bungy harness questioning whether or not I’d actually have the willpower to go through with this. I asked the staff if they could just push me off. I’d honestly prefer that.
But they explained that I must do this on my own. This wasn’t off to a good start.
But speaking of the AJ Hackett crew, they were great. Full of enthusiasm, they got me talking about where I’m from, my former job, and other topics that had absolutely nothing to do with the forthcoming challenge: leaping off a 141-foot high bridge. Although physically shaking while walking onto the Kawarau Bridge, the AJ Hackett crew really did help bring me to ease.
Then as if right on cue, it suddenly began to rain.
Tensions shot right back up. Kawarau Bridge bungy jumps occur rain or shine. So now to add insult to injury I’d be bungy jumping during a rainstorm. Maybe this was a sign though. The shower provided some last-minute doubts about whether or not to actually go through with it.
After safety checks took place, I knew what was coming next. It was time to mosey on out to the very edge of the Kawarau Bridge and dive into the canyon.
With the tips of my shoes now as far as they could go, I tried not to look down. But that was inevitable. The height of this otherwise beautiful jagged canyon, was now really set in.
The murky blue Kawarau River down below seemed miles away. I usually don’t have much of a fear of heights. But vertigo had set-in full force high up on the bridge. I wanted to vomit.
I knew if I was going to go through with this, I’d need to make the dive without hesitation or else I probably would end up being like many others who do the walk of shame off of the Kawarau Bridge.
It was time to rip off the band-aid. Let’s do this!
With cameras now rolling to capture my impending doom, I was instructed to wave at the spectators. Then I was to wave down to Kristen to Eric, who instead got a certain middle finger since I hold them responsible for swaying me into this mess. (Thanks guys!)
Finally, it was time to bungy jump off the Kawarau Bridge. I was scared to death! so frozen with fear that I hadn’t really put much thought into how to jump. Nor did I pay much attention to others’ form.
I quickly and nervously asked one of the crew members how to jump off the bridge? He told me that it was best to just fall straight down like a tree after being chopped. Well, that sounds easy enough.
With the rain now picking up, I had to jump immediately. The pressure was on. Despite my extreme anxiety and trepidation that had now overcome me, I was determined to go through with the bungy jump.
I asked the crew one final time if I was all safe and secure into the bungy harness. He joked back that everything was “safe enough.”
So I leaned over the edge of the Kawarau Bridge. I began falling down like a chopped tree, exactly as they had instructed.
There was one big problem:
Instinct took over.
I started off on the ledge falling like a tree. But doing so felt so completely unnatural.
As I began to leave the platform, instead of taking an elegant swan dive like my friends, I attempted to get upright and recapture my balance with my arms, all while screaming from absolute terror.
I don’t even recall the moments that immediately followed departing the platform, so I was thankful to have a video of the Kawarau Bridge Bungy jump to fill this gap in my memory.
Here’s what went down: