AA in Australia

Have you ever heard of the bungy jump version of ”Beauty and the Beast”?

 

Neither have I, but I am going to tell it to you either way. When you are standing at the top and you are looking out over the landscape, you feel immortal. You feel like you are stuck in this moment forever, then you look down. Good job, you just introduced yourself to the Beast.

 

Okay, lets not get ahead of ourselves. Let us rewind a bit and start from the beginning.

I woke up around 6:45 for my morning run, ran to the ATM, took some cash out, ran around a few blocks and then returned to the holiday park. After breakfast I packed my things and then got ready for pick-up at 9am. The bus picked us up and we were heading 20 minutes north of Cairns to where their bungy jump tower was located. We were jumping with AJ Hackett, which is a famous bungy jump company and they are the only ones that offer you a jumping menu.You got to choose between 16 different ways to get launched of the platform. When we arrived at the bus stop we began our climb upwards the mountain to the facility. After a short walk we arrived and we were all excited and fascinated by the giant tower they have built. We signed in and then we had to wait for them to tell us it was okay to start climbing all 196 steps to the top of the tower. The more height we gained, the more spectacular the view became. After several platforms we were finally at the top platform where the view was awesome! Beauty. I started to feel really really excited.

We were three people who were jumping this morning. Me, Andreas and a girl from Australia, and we were jumping in the reversed order. Which did not really suit me. I would have loved to be the first one to jump since it is always worst to go last. First of all you have to wait and watch everyone else to jump and second of all they more you wait, the more time you will have to start over-think everything. I was not pleased but hey, I was pretty happy and excited anyways.Our instructor told us a few things and then they put all safetygears on and hatched us to a rope. Our instructor asked us what the swedish word for “edge” is and Andreas replied “kant” so he told us that before we jumped, we were supposed to walk to the kantand then smile to the camera before he started a countdown from 5. The girl went first and she did a “water touch”-jump where the upper body (could be more or less) were getting a little wet in the pond we were jumping towards. And yes, she screamed when she jumped. After her, it was Andreas turn to jump. Unfortunately I did not see him because I was busy talking and receiving information from the other instructor but I sure did hear him. A 1 second “Waaaaah” slipped out of Andreas before he fell down. It was pretty funny and they told me that you cannot scream while you are falling, so usually you hear them scream in the beginning or after they have reached the bottom for the first time. Then it hit me, it was my turn. He told me to stand up and walk (as good as you could, since your feet were tied together) and then smile to the camera. After the shot he started to count down really fast, not like 5---4---3---2---1---go, it was more like 54321-go. I did not have time to think, just jump. And so I did.

 

I am not afraid of heights, but I am afraid of heights. Yes, you read correctly. Just to make this clear, I am not really afraid of heights, in fact, I really enjoy viewing things from above. But to be honest, I fear heights just because I am aware of what will happen if I would fall down. Free falling. It is nothing like just jumping from a trampoline into a pool. It is so extraordinary. Especially bungy jump since your head is facing downwards. I was knocking on gravity's door and got a welcoming hand by the Beast. During the first two seconds of the free falling when the rope still was not stretched out I felt completely terrified but still amazed by the fact that I actually jumped. Not long after this thought slipped through my mind the rope got stretched out and I was reaching the bottom and I could release a little cheer and emotions. Beauty arrived again. I reached the bottom and then the rope pulled me really high up again and I felt really thrilled and joyful. Happiness. Rest of the ups and downs were just funny and I really enjoyed it since I actually did the worst part and this was like dessert. Doing bungy jump was something I was really scared of since I have my fear of heights but that would not stop me from achieving this experience. And the fun did not stop here.

 

 

After the bungy jump we went to the Minjin Swing,which is the fastest jungle swing in the world with a maximum speed of 120km/h. We got our safety-gears strapped on and then we hang on the swing before we got pulled up to the beginning of the swing. When we reached the top we got hatched and then we were waiting for the red light to turn green. When it did, Andreas pulled the rope attached to our swing and we went of. What neither of us did expect was the free fall down to where the line caught us again. So it was a little terrifying again for a moment but lots of fun! We went by the camera several times since we were going back and forth over it. It was so much fun and I am glad we did the swing as well. After this action-thrilled day they asked us if we wanted to do something again and we told them that we had enough action for today and checked out our pictures on the computer-screen. We got our pictures and we bought a GoPro video as well, we wanted some memories to remember this and share pictures with all of you.

 

Unfortunately the video is really hard to play, due to the mp4 or probably due to my not-so-good-for-those-kind-of-things-computor. Anyways we had a blast and enjoy the rest of the pictures!