How to Bungee Jump Off the Auckland Harbour Bridge

This is a very intense activity both physically and mentally, and is by no means for everyone. It’s kind of hard to describe, but I’ll do my best.

Plain and simple, bungee jumping is the act of falling or jumping from a great height while attached to an elastic cord. When you reach the limit of the cord, it will react like a band, and you’ll bounce a few times before being pulled back up. The entire experience, from jump to being pulled up, takes about 1 to 2 minutes.

Originally, bungee jumping was done in Vanuatu, where men would jump from wooden towers with vines attached to their ankles. The modern version was developed in New Zealand by AJ Hackett and Henry Van Asch, who established the world’s first commercial site at the Kawarau Bridge near Queenstown in 1988.

Bungee is an internationally recognised spelling derived from British slang for something elastic. Bungy is the preferred spelling in New Zealand, where the modern sport was invented and popularised by AJ Hackett.

I’ll be using the “bungee” spelling as it’s more recognised.

This is a pretty dangerous activity, so please make sure you’re only attempting this with a legitimate company. As I’ve mentioned already, AJ Hackett is the first company to commercialise this, and they have multiple places across New Zealand where you can jump or do other extreme sports. The biggest being Nevis in Queenstown at 134 meters.

If you’re staying in Auckland, as I did, you can take the leap off the Auckland Harbour Bridge! They also have a SkyJump from the Sky Tower, but it’s more of a controlled fall than a free fall.

You do need to sign a health and safety waiver. You should have received this in your email after you registered. For the record, this activity starts at $260 NZD.

Besides physically showing up, there’s some mental preparation as well. I will not lie when I tell you I woke up that morning in a bit of a panic. Why on earth would I jump off a bridge??? Once I got to the building, they double-checked my reservation and wrote two numbers on my hands.

Use the toilet now because there isn’t one on the bridge! Put everything you’re not taking on the bridge into a locker and keep the key somewhere safe. You are allowed to bring your phone, and it will stay in the pod on the bridge when you go down.

You’ll get put into a harness and given a helmet. The helmet is just for walking onto the bridge, as it’s considered a construction site. So it’s for safety and legal purposes. You’ll take it off to jump. Once you’re set, you walk 10 minutes across the bridge with an employee and climb the stairs into a pod where you’ll find the pros who will help you with the jump.

They’ll instruct you to sit in the chair, double-check the numbers on your hands, check your harness to make sure everything is tightened, hook up the foot hold, explain the foot release and how best to jump, and answer any questions you might still have.

After you waddle like a penguin to the edge of the platform, take a deep breath and go headfirst. Going headfirst sounds terrifying, but they said not to go feetfirst, as it will make the jump more awkward and you won’t fall correctly. You’ll be ok, but the bouncing might be more intense as your body will have to flip to headfirst anyway.

Since it was only two of us in my time slot, they played a song of our choosing. Personally, I picked “What We Live For” by American Authors because it’s my ultimate adventure song. The music helped, but I did wait for the drop as my signal to go. It still took a lot of willpower to turn off my survival instincts and allow myself to go.

Next thing I knew, I was falling towards the water before being quickly snapped back up by the cord. It’s at this moment that you want to release your feet. Also, smile for the camera because the person who walked you up the bridge is taking pictures!

You’ll then be pulled back onto the platform.

My body was shaking. It knew something had just happened, like I was in danger, and had released intense amounts of adrenaline. Not the greatest feeling, but thankfully I started to calm down after a few minutes. Watched my friend jump (I went first, or there was no way I would actually go), and we walked back down the bridge to return the harness, gather our things, and look at the photos and videos. I was grateful to be on solid ground.

All the professional footage is included in your jump, so it’s cool to have those, and I also felt better once back in the building looking at the aftermath. I made some pretty ridiculous faces, but can you blame me??

Would I bungee jump again? No. Absolutely not. It was one hell of an experience, but I had to literally turn off my survival instincts to go through with it. I’ll probably never skydive after this either. However, I know tons of other people absolutely love it, so by all means enjoy. I’ll gladly watch from the side in the future!