I pulled my thrifted sneakers out of the suitcase that I’d already made a mess of on the hotel room floor. I rarely wore them back home but had brought them along with me to Auckland, on my first trip to New Zealand.
just as I had been instructed to do. I tightened the bunny ears in the laces and bolted down three flights of stairs and across the road, heading for Sky Tower.
It was only minutes to my booked time for the Sky Jump, a bungee jump off the almost thirty-year-old structure that looms over Auckland, supposedly visible from up to 30 kilometres away.
When I decided on a solo trip to Auckland, I’d spent a bit of time doing what any informed tourist does, Google searching activities and experiences I might enjoy in the area.
The Sky Tower had come up immediately.
“A great view from the observation deck, but otherwise mostly restaurants and exclusive clubs,” I found written among the reviews from other visitors. I’m no foodie, and so I was a moment from deciding to skip the destination when I scrolled an inch further and saw “SkyJump & SkyWalk” on the Sky Tower website. A “SkyJump”.
Now this seemed much more up my alley. I looked up the height, weight, and apparel requirements.
“Flat, lace-up secure footwear,” the instructions said. I book-marked the page, and it was officially on my to-do list. “Are you feeling any nerves at all, any anxiety about this?” the young attendant behind the counter marked SkyJump asked me.
“Nope! Should I be?” I teased. He began with his job of assuring me they’d never had an accident.
“It’s fine, I trust the staff,” I interjected. He smiled, saved from his otherwise surely long speech.
They weighed me for safety and wrote my weight and the number 9 on the back of my hands, marking me the ninth person to do the jump that day.
Numbers 10 and 11 arrived to wait with me moments later – a young Japanese woman who’d never done anything like this before, and a young American man who’d bungee jumped before but never from such a great height.
We were led to a room where we pulled on the orange jumpsuits the staff handed us and got briefed on how it would all work.
“The elevator will take you up to level 53 and then you just follow the signs that say SkyJump. The staff up there will hook you up. I’ll be at the bottom to catch you,” he told us. “Could you sit down so I can check your shoes please?”
He tugged at my sneakers. They stayed firmly on my feet, and he gave me a thumbs up before helping me into a harness. Minutes later I stood 192 metres above an unfamiliar city, attached to a cord thinner than my arm. I was more than ready to take the dive.
“Hold on to the rail and look down there,” the female staff member who was out on the deck with me said. I leaned over the edge. The sight of the cars and people below was familiar.
“This view looks like the aerial view style of the first Grand Theft Auto game,” I told her.
“Well, that’s a first,” she laughed.
“Ready to go?” I stood at the edge of the platform a minute, waiting for her signal and for some profound revelation about life to dawn on me, some nugget of truth pulled forth from my subconscious by the thought of what I was about to do. Nothing. Not a single thought at all, let alone a profound one. Just excitement, a hint of adrenaline.
“When you’re ready, let go of the cords, and jump.”
I looked down and kicked off the platform the way one would off the edge of a swimming pool. I instinctively tried to shove my hands in my pockets, the way I do when I stand on the seawall in Nasese admiring the sea.
But the flight suit had no pockets. I suppose there wasn’t a need for them. And so, my hands found the harness instead as I looked down smiling at the fastapproaching world below me.
Despite dropping at about 80 kilometres per hour, I was still well above most of the nearby buildings when I realised not pretending that I could fly would be a wasted opportunity. I spread my arms out and dropped the remaining few seconds back to land.
The entire flight lasted only about 11 seconds. The cords slow you down, when you’re nearing the ground, for a safe landing.
My sneakers planted safely on the ground again, I watched as the next two jumpers took their turns, clearly enjoying the rush as much as I had. I spent the next hour back up on the viewing deck of the tower, attempting to prolong the experience.
But nothing else at the tower gave nearly the same rush that leaping off a platform nearly 200 metres high did.
I bought an orange hoodie with the organiser company, AJ Hackett’s logo on it to commemorate my jump, and walked out of Sky Tower, off to find my next Auckland adventure.
