On the morning of April 20th , I woke up sleepily to 3 awesome cards written by my family, several kind texts from family back in the states, and best of all, the last piece of chocolate from the giant bar we’d been carrying on our roadtrip. Later that day, we were at a wine tasting when my mom asked, what is it going to be like being 13? I responded with a couple different answers all revolving around the category of privileges. For example, I said you get to sit in the front seat, go to bed later, and last but not least, PLAY TACKLE FOOTBALL!
Still on the day of my Birthday, we took a 2-hour drive to Kaikoura which is home to lots, and lots of whales, which is what this town is known for. There are so many whales in this particular region because the Australian and the Pacific tectonic plates create an underwater canyon a little way offshore. This canyon hosts a huge amount of underwater biodiversity and nutrients which makes a good and steady food chain and the perfect place for these whales to thrive. Beforehand, mom had booked an awesome way to see the whales that did not include her getting seasick, instead maybe a little air sick. Yes, we went into a mini plane and flew over the whales!
The takeoff went smooth and before we knew it, we saw our first sperm whale. Sperm whales can grow up to 60 feet in length and have the largest skull of any living animal. It caught us off guard when our pilot flipped us to a 45-degree angle, or in other words, almost to our side. We ended up circling the sperm whale for a bit before it did a little dive underwater. At that moment our pilot said to hurry and look because the whale was about to fluke! And just like he said, the whale came back up for one last breath and then flung its tail up in the air and dove back down. Our pilot also told us that they typically stay underwater for around an hour and come up to breath for 5-10 minutes.
Later on, we got to see 2 other sperm whales and an awesome pod of long-finned pilot whales, which the pilot hadn’t seen in 4-5 months! Pilot Wales are typically smaller, with a max length of 25 feet, and they travel in pods of 7-15 with one leader or pilot. Mom’s favorite fact about them is that whales will stay in their mother’s pod even when older. It was really cool to see them all in their pod of about 12, and you could recognize the pilot leading the way. Each time we saw a whale our pilot would go onto his phone and communicate with other whale watching boats that were using sonar to find the whales.
After we got back, we talked about how awesome it was, and how many bad photos we are going to need to delete.
We had one more birthday activity to go…
Bungy jumping was originated by the Vanuatuan people. They thought that if a male citizen were to jump off their hand crafted, 75-foot wooden towers while having their ankles attached to long elastic vines, and successfully touch the tips of their hair to the soil beneath them, they would have good luck harvesting yams. Then in 1950, naturalist David Attenborough and a camera crew went to Pentecost Island and got their first looks at bungy jumping. But bungy jumping was only brought to New Zealand in 1988 after a huge effort to test bungy jumping. AJ Hacket and his friend Henry van Asch needed to test bungy jumping a perfect jumping point like the Eiffel Tower, so that’s exactly what they did. They snuck out at night and tested a jump and… there was good news and bad news. The good news is that they nailed the jump and everything worked, but the bad news is that they got arrested. But it was all worth it because in 1988 they opened the first commercial bungy operation in Queenstown.
Then another 36 years later, on April 21, I got to go and try it out for myself as a Birthday present from my parents. Once we got to the bungy cabin we had to check in, which only included taking my weight, filling out a risk conformation form, getting a bracelet, and last emptying my pockets of valuables - mom thought it was funny I was old enough to jump off a bridge but young enough not to carry a single valuable object in my pockets.
Before we knew it, me, Poppy, and Dad were walking up to the bridge I was about to jump off while mom was heading towards the bottom to get a different view. Once me, Poppy, and Dad got to the jumping point, they got me all set up with gear and told me to jump on three, and all that happened even faster. As I stepped my toes onto the edge, I looked down, and it looked a lot farther down than it did from a faraway view. They gave me a go pro to hold and then, like that, said, “1 2 3 BUNGY!” Ahhhhhh! I jumped right away and fell for a couple seconds while letting out a few wails before running out of slack and bounced back up about halfway and back down, and so on. Once I was just swaying slowly, a boat came and picked me up and brought me to shore (because the bridge was over a river). As I was walking back up the hill to the car, Poppy said, “That was a Tom Cruise move.”
-Grayson
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