A trip to Queenstown is definitely not complete until you have experienced and felt the amazing rush of the bungy jump. The art of Bungy jumping dates back thousands of years to when Vanuatu tribes use to tie vines to there ankles and jump off big towers to prove bravery and heroism to the tribes women. AJ Hacket saw this as an opportunity and brought this ritual to New Zealand and this is now a globally know business. I know your thinking; people pay to tie a big elastic rope to their ankles and jump of a bridge? As farfetched as it sounds a lot of people pay to do it. I think it’s the sense of not being stopped by anything and the freedom of being able to fly for a split second is why so many men and women do this.
Without a doubt it is another sun filled spectacular Friday afternoon in the glorious Queenstown. The gang and I are getting ready to do the impossible, jump off a huge ledge. That I would not even dream about doing. The last famil that I threw myself into was that of the amazing Jet Boat ride from Waiatoto river safaris, so this was going to be a lot more scary. My group from QRC and I all met in our classroom at the Queenstown Resort College where we met our teacher Emily who was to look after us for the afternoon. The aim for the afternoon was to attack the Queenstown ledge bungy with full force and guns blazing. But before we were to jump the ledge we are going to have some fun racing each other down the famous skyline luge and watch a performance from the kappa haka group up at skyline. We were all extremely excited as we walked to get on the gondola to take us up to the skyline. Once we arrived at the top of the gondola we went straight to the luge. This was a new experience for me as I had always wanted to try this, we all grabbed our little black luge carts and had a briefing with the man in charge at the luge station. He sent us on our way and I enjoyed 5 fun thrilled rides round the luge track racing and crashing into the other guys. The kappa haka show that we experienced after was truly amazing the songs, dances and the Maori culture was definitely a new experience for me. They even got the girls to come up and do a poi dance and the boys to come up and perform the haka.
The time had come, the time where I had to step up and do the unthinkable, throw myself of a cliff. There was no way of backing out, well there was but as the men of Vanuatu jumped to be brave in the eyes of there women so must I. We walked around to the ledge bungy shop where all the staff was waiting to greet us warmly, we had a talk about what was going to happen and the safety aspects of the company. I got on the scales to weigh my self so that the jumpmasters new what weight to put the rope to. All of us walked around the track towards the ledge area where we were to jump. Looking around I could tell that everyone was really nervous. I especially was nervous as I had never done anything like before in my life and didn’t think I would. I was third to jump; my legs trembled as I was trying to put my harness on. The ledge bungy crew had an extremely relaxed persona about them, which I felt was very good as it helped cool everyone’s nerves. As I stood on the edge of that ledge looking over Queenstown I felt relaxed and forgot that was even about to jump off a 47 metre high ledge. The jumpmaster was relaxed which made me relaxed. I walked back from the edge, took a few huge strides and made the leap of faith of the edge. I leapt out like a huge starfish with my arms wide open, not a care in the world as I flew freely through the sky. The spring back up as reached the end of the rope was an amazing feeling, I dangled there for a few minutes whilst I caught my breath back and they lifted me back up to the platform. Wow what an amazing an experience, I am now hooked for life.
This ledge bungy in Queenstown is an amazing experience; I would recommend this to anyone who extremely scared of doing it. For the others out there who are not bothered by heights I recommend trying a big jump such as the Canyon Swing over the Shotover River. If you wish to read more about the Ledge Bungy, have a look at Nick Shea's blog.
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