Kawarau Bridge: The first bungee jumping site in New Zealand
Witness History
BBC
4.4 • 1.6K Ratings
🗓️ 21 June 2024
⏱️ 10 minutes
🧾️ Download transcript
Summary
On 12 November 1988, the world’s first commercial bungee jumping site was opened near Queenstown, New Zealand.
AJ Hackett and Henry Van Asch started out bungee jumping as a hobby with friends. They developed the bungee ropes and rigging system and found the perfect site – the historic Kawarau Suspension Bridge – which would give paying customers the chance to safely fall 43 metres.
It helped make Queenstown become the adventure tourism capital of the world. Josephine McDermott jumped from the bridge herself 20 years ago and finds out from AJ Hackett how it all came about.
(Photo: A jump from Kawarau Bridge. Credit: Getty Images)
Transcript
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| 0:29.0 | Newscast, listen on BBC Sounds. You're listening to the Witness History Podcast from the BBC World Service, with me Josephine McDermott. In 1980... the B |
| 0:47.4 | C World Service with me Josephine McDermott. In 1988 the world's first bungee jumping |
| 0:46.9 | site was opened in New Zealand. I've been speaking to A.J Hackett. |
| 0:52.0 | It's 1986 and a bare-chested man in yellow shorts with shoulder length |
| 0:58.0 | dark hair is standing on Auckland's green-Heath Bridge. |
| 1:05.0 | He's getting ready to jump, into 19 meters of nothingness, |
| 1:08.0 | head first. |
| 1:10.0 | His ankles are tied together. |
| 1:16.0 | I was actually super excited about testing it because it all looked good |
| 1:21.0 | and I just wanted to know what it would feel like. Standing on the |
| 1:27.0 | edge when we used to jump into water from high places without a bungee cord. We always came up with this |
| 1:35.8 | countdown. It was five, four, three, two, one and on one you always jumped. The |
| 1:42.0 | two seconds before that is the final checks and then |
| 1:46.2 | it's just posing and really coming down and just five four three 1, dive out into space and I relax, once I'm in the air, I'm just really enjoying it, |
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