New Zealand Adventures: Sandra's Bungy Jump at Kawarau

Tuesday, January 17, 2012

Following the helicopter adventure, we took a different route toward Queenstown, this time driving through Cromwell and then down through the Kawarau Gorge. The Cromwell area seems to be very agricultural with many fruit trees and vegetable farms. Cherries are in season here so we stopped at a farmhouse that had a sign out on the road. We noticed that the orchards are covered with black netting so we asked the lady why. "It's the birds," she said. "They would take all of the cherries if we didn't cover the trees. They gorge themselves to the point that they can barely fly. Our neighbor lost his whole crop in one night a few years back."

We could understand why the birds liked the cherries. They were red, plump and sweetly delicious. Also a bit expensive. We paid $10 for about a quart of the treats. We are trying to hang on to them for more than a day. Down the road we stopped at another market that sold all kinds of fresh fruits and vegetables plus lots of dried fruits. They had kiwis in many different forms - there's even a chocolate bar laced with bits of kiwis. One dried fruit roll-up sold for $3.50. We tasted some free samples of various items and window shopped the rest.

An hour later we pulled into an historic site - the A.J. Hackett Bungy Jump on the Kawarau Bridge. Back in 1988, Hackett and his buddy Henry Van Asch came up with the idea after seeing something similar in Vanuatu. The first commercial jump was set up at this spot here just out of Queenstown. The bridge is about 145 feet above the river and now, 25 years later it's pretty organized and commercialized. There is a special building, video cameras all over, a snack bar, and lots of viewing areas. (I wonder if they still use the bridge for anything else.)

These guys have obviously done well as a result of this first venture. They have expanded to several other sites and introduced some new thrills at another location where they have "the world's highest and longest swing." There are now jumps in Auckland off the Sky Tower. If they were in Seattle, they would be doing it off the Space Needle. There is a large crew at Kawarau. Several people indoors to take your money, fill out forms, sell videos. More outdoors to hook you up (and push you off). A couple more down below in the river to reel you in. No wonder a jump costs $180. But there was a line of people waiting to pay and experience 5 seconds of rushing adrenaline. The oldest person to jump here was 90 years old and the youngest was 10. Even paraplegics have done it.

On this day it was Sandra Seim who would go through the process. She said it was worth it. Once she convinced herself to proceed, she just did it. There was no pain and no regret. "The hardest part was the walk back up from the river." Lots of steps to climb and she was out of breath when she got back. They rewarded her with a T-shirt and a certificate. I was tempted to buy a shirt that read, "I was too chicken to do it" but I may yet change my mind.

Here's the video: Sandra's Bungy Jump