Getting into the swing of things

BY MIKE WATSON

It's taken 12 years of planning and soaked up about $750,000 of investors' money, but Taupo's giant swing is finally up and running.

The town's latest tourist attraction, part of the Taupo Bungy operation, will open for business on Sunday.

Taupo Bungy manager Scott Bason said he expected the Taupo Cliffhanger to draw thousands of adrenaline junkies.

"We get 200,000 visitors a year to the town and 20,000 take the bungy jump. We did our research and found 70 per cent who didn't take the bungy jump said they would try the giant swing if it was built."

The giant swing is 44 metres above the Waikato River. Contractors used a crane to fix into position the 130-metre-long wire cable that runs between two towers built high on the clifftop.

Customers are fitted into a safety harness and lowered from the platform before being released to swing out over the river.

A 180-kilogram maximum safety weight limit allowed two people to tandem swing, Mr Bason said. Swing rides cost $109 solo, or $190 tandem.

The attraction has not been without its critics, mostly residents living on the river bank, who fear their privacy will be lost.

Resource consent took 12 years to be granted before noise restrictions were met.

The operation can only open during daylight hours and noise levels must be kept below 50 decibels – about the level of two people talking.

Taupo Bungy has assured residents noise levels will be kept to resource consent standards. The company does not expect excessive noise, with trials on a Taihape swing operation showing only 1 per cent of participants shouting out loudly.

However, resident Sue Goldsmith said the cliff face and river banks acted like an "echo bowl" and amplified any sound.

"We can hear quite clearly people talking 200 metres away. The intermittent screaming is intrusive."

Mrs Goldsmith's house is directly in line with the swing. Six permanent residents live in the area, the remaining properties are holiday houses.

"We are not against the activity, only the locality. It's not appropriate activity for a residential area."

She said an appeal of the resource consent was considered but legal expenses were too much.

"We have lost our privacy but we just have to put up with it."

FEEL THE FEAR AND DO IT ANYWAY: A REPORTER TAKES A SWING

In a former life I was a scaffolder. It was a shortlived career – I'm not good at heights.

I've never bungy-jumped, so what am I doing hanging 40 metres above the Waikato River?

I'm held in a mountaineering harness by hooks, slings and carabiners attached to wire cables draped 130 metres between two towers. My mouth is dry, my hands are clammy, my stomach's rumbling and my legs are lifeless. I'm not sure if my heart is still beating.

I'm trying hard to feel calm. Repeating the mantra over and over: "No one has died from this yet."

Taupo Bungy manager Scott Bason is giving me the facts on the newest tourist attraction, the Taupo Cliffhanger. It's going in one ear and out the other.

"Are you sweating?" he asks. "Don't worry, we've tested it 70 times this week."

Someone chips in that the rope has been replaced twice already. "It gets a bit of wear and tear." I almost believe them.

Swingmaster Rimu Yardley counts down "three, two ..." then "bang"!

There's a nanosecond stall before I'm falling toward the water. The fall stops as the rope takes up the slack and then begins to swing me backwards and forwards in a long arc out across the water.

The swing slowly comes to rest. I'm left dangling above the river, watching trout, before I'm winched back up.

Maybe a bungy jump wouldn't be that bad.

- © Fairfax NZ News