Monday morning came at a ridiculously early hour the day my
friend AJ and I decided to go bungee jumping.
We got picked up by the lovely people at AJ Hackett and arrived at a
rather secluded spot near the JCU Cairns campus. After walking up a rather steep hill, we
emerged into a lovely bar area open to the air and situated so spectators could
gather round the small pool where we to jump against all instincts. We paid, set our stuff on a chair and climbed
the “tower of terror” to the platform where we were to jump. AJ decided to go first, and since he has a
bad knee, he was put in a body harness.
I watched him jump, very excited for my own brush with death as I
watched him splash down and swing around.
My turn came around and the awesome guys at the top sat me down to tie
me up to the bungee cords. I was
expecting some fancy rigged set up with lots of clips and D-rings, so I was
somewhat surprised when they guy folded a towel around my ankles, secured it
with a strap, and started hooking up the bungees.
“Wait, that’s it? Just a towel and a strap?”
“Oh no no sweetheart,” I was reassured, “its three towels
and a strap!”
“…. Umm”
“Oh don’t worry hun! They’re the best towels 2 dollars can
buy!”
This was the point where I began to have a few doubts.
They got me hooked up and I shimmed to the edge of the
platform, buzzing from the adrenalin. I
still wasn’t really afraid, just a bit nervous.
The next 30 seconds however, were absolutely terrifying:
:00 sec- get to edge of platform
:01 sec- realize that the extremely high high-dive metaphor
I had constructed in my head to keep from
getting nervous was completely wrong and this is actually significantly
higher than I was expecting.
:05 sec- Am I really going to do this?
:10 sec- guy starts counting down from 5
:15 sec- guy hits 1
:16 sec- screw it I'm jumping
:17 sec- actually jump off the platform
:18 sec- realize I have made a terrible mistake
:19-25 sec- free fall and release blood curdling scream
:25 sec- bungee starts slowing me down and
:30 sec- start laughing like a crazy person as I continue to
bounce and swing back and forth
yeah it was a pretty wild ride.
The next day AJ and I went 4 wheeling through the rainforest. Pretty self explanatory. It was a lot of fun and absolutely beautiful.
