Bungy Jumping

[Adrian Schneider]

As I probably told a few of you, I went bungy jumping in South Africa. To our suprise, we fluked out and went to the highest one in the world (216m). I guess I'm stupid or something, but I didn't think it would be scary. I mean, all you have to do is get tied up and jump.

Haha, yeah I was wrong.

Driving up there (about 1hr from Knysna), we went over several bridges as we drove higher and higher, and each one my stomache churned a little more. Finally when we reached the bridge I was nearly terrified.

We first went to the shops and stuff where you sign up (across from the bridge), and my uncle stationed there with the video camera. We walked down to the catwalk, and eventually the jumping zone.

Of course you are thinking "don't look down", then naturally you do. Wow. It is high. Out of me and my friend Justin, I was the first, so I had no idea if we would live or not lol.

As they are tieing me up, my (newly aquired) fear of heights is falling into place. Finally, they hop with me to the edge, with my toes dangling over. With all the energy they have, they count down from 5.

That was the longest 5 seconds of my life.

During those 5 seconds, your fear heightens to an unbeleivable amount, then finally adrenalin takes over and you just jump without even thinking.

The next 5 seconds of my life were longer than the previous 5.

Freefalling is an amazing feeling. Basically it feels like you aren't moving, but the wind and the view rules that idea out. When the rope finally stretches too far, you are shot back upwards and you feel (maybe just relative to freefalling) 1000x heavier than usual, and there is an enormous amount of pressure on your feet.

When you are falling, it feels like the rope is loosening (slip-knot or something), then when you go up it tightens. So every time you go down it feels like the rope is coming off, and then the fear comes back.

Finally, the energy in the elastic-rope dies out, and they come down and fetch me back up (still hanging by my feet).



That was probably the highlight of my trip... a few minutes. It is definitely an amazing experience and I recommend it to anyone who wants to have some fun. I have video from the jumping zone (from them), and my uncle's perspective. It is very hard to imagine what it is like without some visual aid.

Here are my favorite two shots of it:

Woah, looks scary. I would never be able to do that. Seems like getting back up would be the scariest part...

[DementedMindz]

Danny.VBT That is a pretty funny sig you have going on there. Also SirAdrian if you enjoyed that or you got the least bit scared try to skydive We did it at cross keys airport in new jersey. You jump at a height of 13,500 feet and you freefall for about 60 seconds before you open up your chute. I must say I have done alot of things in my life that gave me the butterflys BUT stepping to the edge of the planes door and looking out then jumping is a true reality check. If you get a chance to do it go for the gold cause nothing in this world compares to it.

Here is 2 pictures they took that day.

Attachment 52313

Attachment 52312

[KTBleeding]

Aside from the .. scary parts of this thread..

How do they build bridges like that? Hah.

[Adrian Schneider]

I may try that when I go back in a year or two.

KTBleeding: With a big hammer I'm sure...

edit: 1000th post!

[DementedMindz]

Alot of the building with things like that comes with helicopters. I build cell phone towers and work on alot of bridges like them daily. I would say about 60% of that bridge was built with a helicopter and about 35% was crane the rest was all man power. But yeah you need a big hammer for things like that.

[bang]

seconding all that said. only I started off with a parachute jump. don't make it any less the case though, I was scared shitless back then. dumbest thing I've ever done, I thought. but hey, that was 7 years ago. now I have 117 parachute and 261 bungy jumps on me