Today is Friday 12th December, and I wanted to see the lemmings throwing themselves from a perfectly good bridge, and paying over NZ$400 for the privilege 🙂
This famous bungie bridge, which is heralded as the first commercial bungie jump location in the world, is on the way to Gibbston, a wine producing area, especially known for its Pinot’s. However, to reach these two objectives I would have to cross the Edgar bridge – the sight of which caused me to turn-around that last time I tried this route. Today would be different. The route is relatively straight forward, its an out and back gravel ride.
The early part of the ride follows the Kawarau river, and the trail climbs and descends rather than following the river bank. It makes for an interesting ride as you don’t know what’s around the next corner.
Eventually, I arrive at the Edgar “scary” bridge and it’s time to push on, close my eyes and just ride across. I had just watched a couple make their way across and so I set off, slowly, trying to stay in the middle so as not to rock the bridge. This bridge earned my respect because it is one of the longest and it’s a long way down to the rocks and smaller river below. I made it across of course, but I am sure my heart rate was elevated 🙂 The couple chatted for a while and we agreed that none of us felt “comfortable” crossing this bridge – but really… it’s totally safe. Of course this is an out and back ride so I would have to cross Edgar a 2nd time today.
Now comes the fun part of the journey, arriving at the famous Kawarau Suspension Bridge and observe the crazy people launching from the old bridge. Only pedestrian and bicycle traffic is allowed on this bridge these days, the road has since been diverted over a modern bridge a few hundred meters away.
As I walked my bike across the bridge I just had to chat with the queue of people on the right side who were all signed up for the bungie experience. You could feel the nervous excitement in their voices when I asked “why the … would you want to do this?”. For most it was their 1st time and they wanted to bag the experience, but yes they were apprehensive! Most were young adults, but I saw a couple of more mature people in the queue too. I watched the team of workers professionally deal with each person in-turn, not rushing, taking all the time they needed to do things perfectly. This is a safe operation and for some thing that looks very risky, that’s a good thing! If you want to do a bungie jump – this would be the place to come.
This guy had just left the bridge and knew he was going to get dipped in the river below, so went without a top. In only a few seconds he touched the water and recoiled back up another 60 feet at least, before bouncing like a rag doll a few more times and then coming to rest just above the water. The rescue dingy then comes out to drag him into the boat and he is recovered back to the shore where he must climb hundreds of steps back up to the bridge level. I have several videos of people jumping and the crowd gets into each jump. It’s really exciting to watch this from the sidelines.
Here are some links to raw, unedited videos of this bridge experience. You may have to download them for descent playback speed.
- https://1drv.ms/v/c/7c925d6b6cb43b66/IQAT01AT_boQRb5YFb1DLINDAcsTx-3Kfsq5_OH6CqJLQH8?e=cepOah
- https://1drv.ms/v/c/7c925d6b6cb43b66/IQBUlNkenlULRJLw_fNgS6c4AQoQ3B0ho4RF25sDTMzhl8s?e=DQw5bG
- https://1drv.ms/v/c/7c925d6b6cb43b66/IQAOUIARrlXpTogNiIeUjsGSAUa2g1U8soF2xi3k0DBaY5w?e=dMvD4O
After witnessing the bungie jumpers, I continued along the trail to Gibbston Tavern where I had lunch. This was just Ok as they were doing major renovations and reconstruction, but the food and service were good. The only other options for lunch are the wineries – “would you like a snack with your wine tasting??” This part of the trip looked a bit like france although these vines looked a lot younger but are well-cared for.
After lunch, I made the return journey back to Queenstown. Not too much excitement on the journey except Edgar bridge of course and another jet boat sighting.
This was another adventure on the bike, along good gravel trails, single track bridges, wine country, and of course the famous bungie destination.
Gallery
