3, 2, 1 BUNGEE!

Yesterday at 11am we were picked up from the hostel by a van covered in pictures of people hanging from ropes (bungee cords) and had other bus drivers telling us “good luck, you’ll need it” and “oooh dangerous” so nerves were obviously higher than normal. I wasn’t actually feeling too bad about it and was quite excited and so was giving Juliet and Nicole advice on what not to do, ie don’t over think, just jump when you’re there, don’t stand and contemplate it too much or you work yourself up.
We arrived at A J Hacketts, walked up the 129 steps to the suspended bridge over a small lake and got harnessed up.

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We had no choice about how we bungeed (sometimes you can chose between a stomach harness and a foot one) however here, we had to jump head first and have the bungee cord attached to our feet. I was first up and when I got to the edge of the platform I freaked! All the advice id given Juliet and Nicole went out the window and I completely forgot it. I was looking over the edge with this towel round my feet with a heavy bungee cord attached to it and I was panicking. I wasn’t even worried about the height or the jump or safety or any of that, I just couldn’t work out in my head how I was meant to dive off it. I asked them if it was like a swimming dive and they said yes and no, and I asked if I could sit on the step and then fall that way and they said no. (Ha) Then I started thinking that if I jumped feet first by accident I’d suddenly get a jolted flip to turn me around and I didn’t want that. Basically I over thought everything and it all went very down hill from there. It was actually quite comical, Juliet and Nicole were laughing and the bungee men were pushing me so I got angry! Then they said I had three seconds to jump or I couldn’t do it, so obviously I had to jump. Three, two, I didn’t even wait for one I just dived off and it was so much fun!

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Nicole was up next and id given her a perfect example of what not to do and so from the bottom I saw her bend her knees, and dive high into the sky and perform the perfect bungee! It’s also so funny to watch from the bottom as I saw her ping back up and her whole body be thrown around and spun as she fell back down, only to be pinged back up again!

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Nicole also did a second jump, as she won a free bungee voucher, and so she did the roof top run. This is where she climbed to the very roof of the bungee building, with a stomach harness this time, and basically just ran down a ramp onto nothing and fell into the bungee that way! People also do stunts off that ramp, such as bmx biking off it. She looked so funny falling towards us and it seemed a lot more fun!

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Last up was Juliet, who screamed the whole way down and pinged up so high she was nearly back where she started! The way you get out of the bungee is also hilarious as a man on a little boat rows out to whoevers bungeed, so Juliet here, and then tries to grab her hand as she’s swinging around red in the face from the blood rushing to her upside down face. Once he’s grabbed Juliet’s hand, she’s lowered by the bungee people at the top and basically ends up lying in the little boat, still with her legs tied together. Then the man rows back to shore and unties her!

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So that’s it, all my extreme sports in Australia completed! A sky dive, white water rafting and a bungee, now let’s see what South America has to offer…