by Pat
on Dec 6th, 2006

# Happy Birthday To Me,

# Let’s do a bungy,
# Throw myself off a ledge,
# Plummet down a valley!

Yep. After several hours of mild panic and a moment of “I can’t do this” whilst just walking onto the bungy bridge, I got the courage and finally went for it…

There was definitely something almost numbing about standing with the front of my feet over the edge of the tiny little ledge on the bridge, legs tied together at their base, staring at the water 43 metres below and knowing that I was about to lean forward and throw myself towards the river, accelerating at 9.8 metres per second.

I even managed a wave to the crowd and a nervous thumbs up to the camera:

Nervous?  Moi?

(There’ll be better versions of these photos available shortly, as the AJ Hackett Bungy folk put them online within 48 hours but I couldn’t wait that long, hence the crap photo-of-a-photo jobby you’ve got here)

Straight after that, the dude who had secured my bungy chord counted down “5, 4, 3, 2, 1” – and by the “3” I was already ducking over the edge.

Wasn’t the world’s most gracious of jumps, but I tell you what – it felt UTTERLY AMAZING:

Taking the plunge

All about the style...

The feeling of acceleration was like nothing else, and watching the river flying towards me was the most mental thing ever – I *just* remembered to get my arms ahead of me in a diving position before my “head and shoulder dunk” in the water… which was actually more akin to “everything except my shoes dunk”.

After flying out of the river again (which was SO refreshing) I was sprung up to well over half the height of the bridge – and for a moment I thought I was going to come crashing onto some rocks (I suspect my head was facing some crazy direction but it was hard to tell) so a little bit of flailing arms occurred, before I safely zoomed back down to just above the river.

From then it was just a few bobs before I grabbed onto the post-bungy-untying dinghy’s support pole thing and fell into the dinghy, completely elated and completely exhausted.

Probably the most intense feeling, even beating Sky Diving probably because of the ground rush and crazy feeling of being tugged around by the rope. In other words, Sky Dive was a case of “Oh shit…oh shit… WHOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOH” whereas Bungy was more “Oh shit… oh shit… here goes… HOLY CRAP, WOOOAAAHHHH JEEZ, YEAAAARHRRRRGH, WOOOOOOOOOH, BLOOOODY HEEELLLLL, WOOAAAH”. Hopefully that clears things up.

Anyway, woot, that was amazing. I’m SO scared of heights but I’d do it again.

I just might have a rest first.

And a few beers. It is my birthday after all :-)

Toodles peeps!

Pat

14 Responses to “# Happy Birthday To Me,”

  1. The_Markon 06 Dec 2006 at 9:03 am

    Dude! Bungy-jumping?! You so crazy!

    That aside – HAPPY BIRTHDAY!

  2. Paulon 06 Dec 2006 at 10:08 am

    Dude! I can’t believe you’re scared of heights, yet have done a sky dive and a bungy jump! As The Mark said, you so crazy!

    Hope you had a great birthday, and got lots of birthday text messages!

    paul

  3. Paul Gon 06 Dec 2006 at 10:12 am

    Happy Birthday mate… not surprised you hit the water with all that pizza on board..! he he ;-)

  4. Tonyon 06 Dec 2006 at 10:22 am

    Pat
    Happy Brithday How is your acrophobia ? Cured!!

    Why would you jump off a bridge we only said “it would be nice to see you back” We did not mean you had to come back

    Have a couple on me for your Birthday

  5. Levinon 06 Dec 2006 at 10:26 am

    Happy Birthday El Shoehorn!

    Sounds like you are having the most amazing time out there… but you must be sad not to have the traditional birthday trip to the BAZ VEGAS PIZZA HUT EXPERIENCE…

    Well, I suppose you can’t have it all…

  6. Sissel Anitaon 06 Dec 2006 at 11:06 am

    You did it!!!!!!! Congratulations, I will never never try anything like this. Now you can really celebrate your birthday – and relax for the rest of the day.

  7. Ruthon 06 Dec 2006 at 12:00 pm

    Looks amazing paddy, hope you had a fabulous birthday!

    All the best chum!

  8. Jimboon 06 Dec 2006 at 5:48 pm

    Dude, you have now achieved God-Like status in my book, you rock.

    It’s weird how the bungee is more scary than the skydive – I think being able to see the ground means your brain has a better comprehension of the stupid thing you’re about to do. Mind you, try piloting your own parachute for the first time – knowing you’ve now got to land the damn thing safely whilest looking down and seeing people & cars & buildings from 4000ft – that’s scary. Put it on your list ;-)

    Good on ya man, top that on your 28th….

    J.

  9. Russon 06 Dec 2006 at 6:06 pm

    Happy Birthday Pat! (And Squage)

    Sounds like you’re having an ace time. Throwing yourself out of aeroplanes, bungee jumping……whatever next?!?

  10. georgeon 07 Dec 2006 at 11:36 am

    What an adventure. There is talk of building a moon base in the next 20 years. Are you thinking of applying ?

  11. Vomiting Veronicaon 07 Dec 2006 at 2:50 pm

    I can’t get to the top of the ladder without coming over all peculiar – so well done you!!!!

    What a fab birthday! Chill Pat – He’s The Man!

    *VV trots off for a quiet “bleurrrrgh*!*

  12. Daveon 08 Dec 2006 at 12:49 am

    Pat! I don’t believe you did this. No, I *litterally* don’t believe you. The reason? You say you were “….accelerating at 9.8 metres per second”.

    What? Everybody knows that accelleration is measured in metres-per-second-PER-SECOND, or meters-per-second-SQUARED.

    A fatal slip, Mr S.!

  13. Robon 09 Dec 2006 at 2:41 am

    ello – happy birthday! Aren’t some people pedantic?

  14. Stuart Charleson 09 Dec 2006 at 10:55 am

    Also, 9.8 is not accurate enough to describe the experience in full detail. I think you will find that stating 9.80665 m/s² would have given your readers a much more vivid impression of what it must have felt like.