Jump Day Part Deux

Mai and I got ourselves up this morning to walk to Taupo Bungy.  It was early, so I wasn't incredibly enthused yet.  Mai opted out feeling she would do it at another destination, so she brought a camera to capture me diving 47m into a river.  They strapped me in and asked if I wanted to touch the water today.  I said, "I'd like to be completely in the water if possible."  I wanted to be part of the "Sole Club" in which you must have your entire body in the water so that only the soles of your shoes are above water.  As I shuffled my feet to the edge, like a prisoner walking the plank, the guy told me to just be sure to tuck my head into my chin when I hit the water to avoid face-planting.  Easy enough.

In the process of all this, Mai stood along the cliff side looking for a good shot.  She climbed the fence that said, "Do Not Climb Fence!" so she could get the whole of my jump on footage.  Unfortunately, she was spotted and the guy yelled at her to go back.  She still got a couple of great photos.  When asked by the man if that was my friend, I so cleverly responded, "Where?  I can't see."  During the first few moments of falling, I felt like I was going to die.  I let out a "Holy..." and when I found my voice, I cheered, quickly admired the world upside down, hit the water and went under.  By the time I realized I was underwater, I was pulled out again.  I started laughing and clapping as the bungee pulled me up and dropped me again.  It was such a rush and I can't wait to do it again. 

After a fairly tiring hike to the Huka Falls, we ventured back to the site of the bungee jump.  A day earlier, we had seen some kids in the river below jumping off maybe a 25 foot rock into the river below.  We decided we'd like to try that.  Only problem was, we had to swim across the Waikato River to get there.  It was only about 100 meters across, and the current didn't seem so bad.  After about 10 minutes of weighing the pros and cons, we decided to ford the river, Oregon Trail style.  We began swimming and felt we were doing quite well.  We had made it more than halfway across.  Suddenly, at the same time we realized the current had begun to drag us further downstream, and each stroke we took failed to bring us any further forward but instead, sideways.  We looked at each other and said simultaneously, "Umm... go back!"  So we literally swam for our lives back the way we came and, after a long struggle against the strong waters of the Waikato, we made it back to safety.  Although we failed to ford the river, we felt we gave it our best shot and being dragged downstream was not in our best interests.