Taking the Plunge - Sarah Baxter's Diary
Sarah hates heights, yet finds herself 43km above a river and about to jump. Will she dare give bungee a go?
Why exactly do people jump off bridges, trusting their lives to only a piece of elastic?
This thought would have occurred to me had I been capable of thought, teetering on a placemat-sized platform, 43m up above the milky blue of New Zealand's Kawarau River.
My ankles were bound together - like a prisoner under interrogation, which I guess I sort of was, as a burly Kiwi barked instructions I scarcely computed. All my brain understood was: 'Count of three. Jump. Oblivion'.
This was the fellow who had padded my ankles with a towel (A towel! Something more high-tech is legally required, surely?) before wrapping the not-very-glorified elastic band of the bungy cord around my legs. I blamed him for my precarious, petrifying predicament. I blamed his countrymen - indeed, his entire country.
See, I'd never wanted to do a bungy jump. I'm scared of heights. And death. So, really, the thought of facing one fear to potentially expedite the other seemed somewhat perverse.
The beautiful Kawarau River might not look so
beautiful when you're about to jump...
→ Page 2: Does Sarah do it?
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