DadTalk

For the High Jump

One of the greatest Kiwi inventions is of course the bungee jump, coming a little in front of Rutherford and all that atomic stuff. When we arrived in Auckland I rather rashly said I’d like to jump off the Skytower.

If you do not know the Skytower it is rather like the BT Tower, but pointier and still an actual visitor attraction. We arrived back in the big city after a month of roaming the South and North Islands and I now had to live up to my promise.

Therefore on Tuesday Victoria made good her promise of a skyjump Christmas present (how kind) and we found ourselves at the base of the Skytower. It is only me doing the deed, as Victoria would not even get in the lift and the children are underage (ten or over limit). On this most Kiwi of experiences my fellow leapers are 3 Brazilians and a Swede.

You have to wear a suit that makes you look like a member of Hi-5. Then they truss you up in a harness and at various stages all the safety stuff is checked and treble checked by various people called Brett.

You could turn the simple facts into an interesting question for the children: “You jump from 192m, it last about 11 seconds, and you reach a speed of 80km/hour, therefore the circumference of the mess you make on impact is?” Technically it is not a bungee jump, but frankly this was not what was worrying me.

Stepping off was clearly fairly un-nerving and there is a point where you dangle to have your photo taken, where you still have another 180m to fall which is somewhat unpleasant.

So why did I do it? Typical male mid-life crisis stuff? To impress the wife and children and/or leave permanent mental scar with them? As Sir Edmund may have, but I’m not sure actually did say, I did it because it was there. Would I do it again? No. It was possibly the most expensive 11 seconds of my life and frankly I’d rather get my kicks in other ways. Sydney Harbour Bridge walk next month anyone?

If you want to see me doing the jump, have a look at the video on our family blog.