FivefourthreetwooneBUNGY!

In case the title didn't give it away, I went bungy jumping! Sorry, Mom. I always swore that I didn't have the thrill-seeking gene, not even a little bit. And that I would never be crazy enough to go bungy jumping or skydiving or anything like that. But something about the atmosphere around here is intoxicating, and I started to feel like I couldn't come all the way to New Zealand, home of extreme sports, and not participate. So last Tuesday I went on the internet, and two days later I was in a van with some other crazy people driving over to Auckland Harbor Bridge.

We stopped at a little hut just at the entrance to the bridge, where they strapped me into a harness, had me sign a paper that said they weren't responsible for anything that might happen, and then sent us all on a walk up the bridge. I think that the walk to the little jump pod is their way of weeding out anyone that really can't handle heights or has some other debilitating fear. The pod is located underneath the bridge kind of in the middle of it, and you get there by walking on this little metal walkway that is also underneath the bridge. So as you are walking from land to the pod you have a nice view of the water getting farther and farther away through the metal pathway beneath your feet. After I had taken those few minutes to realize exactly how high I was getting and consider how crazy I must be to voluntarily jump off of this bridge, we finally reached the pod.

After a couple of hints about what to do, they started calling us up to be attached to the bungy cord. Only one person goes at a time, but it only takes about a minute for someone to jump and then be hauled back up. They were calling us in the order that we had signed up, so I was last and I got to see everyone go before me. From inside the pod, you can see people jump and you can see them come back, but you can't actually see them while they are in the air. Not that it would have made a difference.

Finally they called my name, so I went and at in the chair while a friendly guy strapped my feet together and then to the cord. When he asked, "Do you want to do a water touch?" I said sure, so he attached a little bit of additional weight to my feet. He explained that I it's better to dive than to jump since you end up upsidedown anyway, and then had me hop off the chair and start waddling (remember, my feet were strapped together) onto the platform.

By this point, I could see straight down to the water, and in the 15 seconds it took me to get from the chair to the edge of the platform I started to have second thoughts. But I didn't have time to think too hard about it, because after that everything kind of happened at once. They try not to give you too much time once you're up there, so instead of counting down one number per second like we do at New Year's they get it all done in one quick moment. So my toes reached the end of the platform, I hear, "OkayhereyougofivefourthreetwooneBUNGY!" and then I just did it.

Then there was this one moment. My legs were tensed, but I hadn't quite jumped yet. I was leaning forward. I felt my weight shift from over the platform to over the water. It was just past the point of no return. And what was I thinking at this particular moment? "Wait! Wait! Please wait! I've changed my mind!" But of course all I could articulate was, "Aaahhh!" as I dove. For about one second I was just amazed that I had actually jumped. I had been warned not to shut my eyes because it all happens so fast, but it didn't really matter because everything was moving so fast that all I could see was a blur of sails around me and the water rushing up to meet me way to quickly. All this time, all I could think was, "Holy shit!" I'm sure there are less rude and more articulate things I could have been thinking like, "This is crazy," or "I'm going to die," or "I wish I had stayed in the hostel," but as I flailed my arms and screamed bloody murder, "Holy shit!" was the best my brain could do. Then right before I hit the water I remembered what they guy had told me about putting my chin to my chest and reaching out my arms, so I did that and then was plunged, head to ankles, into the harbor (so much for the water touch).

The first bounce is almost as terrifying as the jump, but then they got gentler and I found myself rising back up to the pod all I could do was laugh. Despite being soaking wet and cold and shaking from the adrenaline, I had this huge goofy smile on my face as they unclipped me and I tottered over to sit down while other people did their second jumps. After all that, the jump had only taken about 10 seconds, but it was completely worth it.

Some fun facts about the Auckland bridge bungy jump:
It is 40 meters or about 131 feet.
The cord is basically made up of lots of little strands of elastic like the ones found in hair bands.
The cord is only 9 meters long, and it stretches to about 4 times its length when you jump.
But no worries, it can stretch to about 15 times its length before it begins to break.
They gave me a free tee shirt.