Rappelling: Repellent? Or Riotous Good Fun?

Ok Jarrod, so last week I ventured out of my comfort zone doing extreme 4×4 driving, got all muddy and discovered I have a secret Inner Hoon. She loves men in High Vis (orange over fluro yellow, but if we’re honest, she’s not fussy), she knows her way around a Super Cheap Auto store, and she has inspirational quotes from her favourite AC/DC songs tattooed on her shoulder blades. This week it was time to scale things back, book in for a quieter activity, you know….regain a little balance.

Shame then, that I had already booked to go rappelling.

It’s the sort of activity that feels rife with the possibility of a very terminal accident. And much as I love writing this blog each week, I certainly don’t want a cliche epitaph like “she died doing what she loved most.” Because unless I perish choking on Turkish Delight while dancing to Queen’s Don’t Stop Me Now, that simply won’t be true.

Just in case you need a visual representation of how fearful I am of plummeting to my death, this is me, about two years ago on a ziplining course in Costa Rica. We had to do a jump where you stepped off the edge of a platform, with no tension on the rope you were gripping, and you just FELL before the slack paid out and it caught you to swing back and forth. I jumped, and once my friends stopping shrieking with laughter, they described the scream I emitted as “not human, it was something animal. Primal.”

Pure. Unadulterated. Terror

I had an awesome blog-scursion partner this week, one of my best friends from my recent South America trip, Leanne. Visiting from Perth for the weekend, she could think of nothing better than standing on a rooftop, leaning forwards, and walking/leaping face first down the side of a building. Actually, she could think of lots of better, FAR less terrifying activities, but like me she was happy to fall on the proverbial sword in the name of good blog material.

We arrived at rappelling central about half an hour early which gave us ample quality time ask ‘why we are doing this?’ over and over and over and over. 11:30am on a Sunday morning, we were shivering in the wind in a car park outside Eve nightclub. It felt weirdly ominous- I half expected tumbleweeds to blow past the nightclub ropes.

Leanne and I sat looking up at the wall we were going to amble down and from our vantage point near the nightclub entrance, we were mildly disappointed. “It doesn’t look that high” we remarked. Moments later two heads appeared at the top. Now, either these men had pathologically tiny heads, like people in Far Side cartoons, or the wall was in fact quite high once you had something against which to give it perspective. Butterflies started fluttering in my stomach.

Fairly high, as it turns out.

The other rappellers arrived in dribs and drabs and hovered about, looking up at the wall. We overheard a few people casually threatening to kill the person who’d booked their tickets. Eventually one of the instructors rappelled down the wall to meet us.  (And he had a perfectly normal sized head, in case you were wondering). He herded us inside to catch the lift up to the roof, and  attempted some friendly chit chat (“anyone ever done anything like this before?”)  In response, the group adhered to Proper Lift Etiquette i.e. everybody maintained their gaze either on the ground, or on the illuminated floor numbers. Butterflies weren’t just fluttering now, they were bashing against the walls of my stomach like suicidal moths against a window pane.

Atop the roof we met our other instructor. Forgive me, they did tell us their names but I was so scared at this point all I heard was white noise. So let’s just call them White and Noise. White gave us a safety briefing and we were handed our medical clearance forms and waivers. I signed that I wouldn’t hold them responsible for my injury or death, but added a little footnote that I would return, Paranormal Activity style, and haunt the f$%k out of them if this went pear shaped.

We harnessed up. Helmeted up. Glove up. Took obligatory ‘look at us in our gear all ready to go’ photos. Began to wonder if butterflies in my stomach were in fact small sparrows.

The best impersonation of ‘Raring To Go’ that we could muster

We ventured to the edge to take a peek down and promptly wished we hadn’t done so. It was definitely not butterflies in my stomach. It was a medium to large sized bird, and it was going to burst explosively out through my abdominal wall like a macabre, live cuckoo clock.

Gritted teeth? Check. Clenched fists? Check. Bowels turning to water? Check!

Noise gave us a demo of rappelling down the wall. Sit on the edge of the building, tip forward, feet on the wall, open hands on the rope and walk forward down to Ground Zero. And he made it look super easy. Like Adam West playing Batman in the old tv series.

Noise then assumed the position of Brake Man down on the ground and White remained up top to guide us one by one over the edge. Leanne and I immediately edged to the back of the line to buy more time. We watched everybody else go over and annoyingly, there was VERY little evidence of nerves on anyone’s part. If they were packing it, they were doing it on the inside and maintaining a freakishly calm exterior.

My turn. I get my safety gear all checked by White and he tells me to march up the steps.

Hesitation is my middle name

I contemplated the carving in the steps – WHO DARES WINS. (Would this be where they set up my impromptu flower memorial in the public outpouring of grief following my demise? Or would it be down in the nightclub car park, near all the bins?) My march up the steps was less a march, and more ‘terrified shuffling usually reserved for victims walking the plank on a pirate ship.’

Who Dares Splatters On The Footpath doesn’t *quite* have the same ring to it

White told me to swing my left leg over the side of the building and I managed this. But when he instructed me to bring the right one over I just froze. My entire body wanted to fall backwards to be in blissful, starfish contact with the roof. Eventually I managed to ply my foot off the ground and there I was, seated on the side of a building.

NO NO NO NO NO NO NO NO NO

White cued me to look over at Leanne to smile and wave. Observe my reaction. See that double chin? That’s physical evidence as to just how counter-intuitive I was finding the whole idea of going forward over the edge. My head is literally retracting backwards. Frankly, I’m surprised that my eyeballs haven’t disappeared back into my skull, leaving black little cavities like you see on a great white shark.

Look over at the camera? No thanks, I’ll thrust back against your shin instead.

There was much hesitation, much “no, I can’t. I just can’t” but finally I tipped forward, past the point of no return.

I’m ready for the SAS. SAS stands for ‘slow and steady’ – right?

Now I’m going to give a word of advice to anyone contemplating going rappelling. I would CAUTION AGAINST HAVING EGGS BENEDICT, A HASH BROWN AND TWO CAFE LATTES JUST BEFORE YOU GO. Because that harness around my stomach? It was like someone administering the Heimlich manoeuvre on me ALL THE WAY DOWN. Noise was down on the ground shouting advice up at me about opening my hands and all I could think was “oh my god if you only knew how dangerously close I am to just vomiting right on top of you, you would not be looking up at me with your mouth open like a baby bird. Oh god, just keep it down Megan keep it down you can do it, just choke it back.”

The sideways kicking? Oh, it distracts me from my imminent vomiting

I scuttled down the wall in exceptionally slow, awkward fashion and then it was Leanne’s go. She had a similar reticence to going over the edge and made her way down very slowly with Noise shouting up at her to open her hands. She actually shouted back at him whilst still rappelling – an argument dynamic I’ve not witnessed before. Full credit to her, she’d had the same breakkie but wasn’t close to chucking like me. She yelled something along the lines of “stop shouting at me! Bloody hell how many times have you done this? F&^k! It’s my first go!”

Then she promptly apologised the second her feet hit the ground. “I’m sorry for yelling at you. I get abusive when I’m scared.”

We’d done it and survived! Hurrah. We hugged and high fived. All that remained was to get the lift back up, return the safety gear, collect our stuff and go for lunch and a post mortem. Back on the roof, I was already pulling my gloves off when White dropped this bombshell: “Ok, so we’re going to take it to the next level this time…”

Tears. Actual tears sprang to my eyes. I turned to Leanne: “We have to go again?”

Yes we did. And this time we had to STAND on the edge and tip forwards. Bloody bloody bloody bloody bloody hell. Noise did it again, of course it looked easy. We resumed our positions as Chicken Shit Back Of The Line Gals. Leanne went first and I was spectator/capture it on film girl. March up the steps. She did a convincing job. Left foot up, nailed it.

Leanne: loved this position so much she maintained it for a few minutes

Right foot up…. right foot up… right foot up… right foot up…. yep, we’ll wait…. you can do it…. right foot up…….eventually we get there. And look at her. Like a roof jumping BOSS ready to go.

Champion. Total Champion

After a rusty start (see how she adopted my caving strategy of ‘become one with the rock?’) she descended haltingly yet impressively.

Become the wall

Way to go.

I followed suit. And we were done! Yessssssssssssss.

Of course we weren’t. THIRD TIME’S A CHARM, RIGHT?! This time the brief was different again. Standing start, a few steps, then jumping all the way down to the bottom. A lovely lady down the bottom captured this one on video for me. I draw your attention to the first section of my descent. A few friends have told me they “love the little kicks!” as though it was a deliberate choice on my part to add some flair to proceedings, and not terrified scuttling because I couldn’t get my footing.

I think my jumps are quite impressive but again, everyone’s a critic and I’ve been told by a number of people that I flick my legs out far too much.

Anyway, in summation, this certainly wasn’t an easy blog for me, but I did feel that buzz you get when you conquer something you didn’t feel you’d be capable of. Maybe conquer is too strong a word, having re-watched the video.

Let’s rephrase: I did feel that buzz you get when you bumble through and incidentally manage to survive something you didn’t feel you’d be capable of. But that’s me. Rapelling down a building: Jarrod, Would You Go There?