Picnc at Hanging Rock Back to EVP Home Page
Picnic at Hanging Rock
May 1999

And yes! The big jump did happen !




The leaping team was Alex, Ming, Dagmar, Geoff and Richard, and myself. Warick also arrived as we were setting up, as did Dagmars friend Jeff (from Australian Geo), Patty and Barry made it too, (brave work with a gammy foot!!!)  ...
After a quick breakfast at the Wattle, we motored off to Balitzer lookout and, of course, Hanging Rock itself.

The weather was o/cast and rather uninspiring, but on arriving at the lookout, we all amped up. The views are awesome!...
Alex and Ming quickly walked out onto the end of the 'beak' to begin setting up, while the rest of us took photo's of them sitting in space, surrounded by drifting clouds.
 
In all we used 6 ropes in the setup.
Two for jumping on, and one spare, as a safety to either drop down, or if need be, rap down on for assistance.
Another as a safety on the beak to protect those walking back and forth. and two to drag the 'jump' ropes to and from the 'beak'
Geoff jumped first. With a wave and a smile he simply yells "See Ya!" and promptly plummets past everyone's view finders, and swings out into about 120m of free space over the Grose valley. The sound of 30+ meters of rope slicing through the air was increadible!. Geoffs swing was so big, I honestly thought he'd come off the end. That first pendulum seemed to last an age. Even his 10 minute jug back up the rope seemed heart stopping. From our vantage point, he seems so small against the enormity of the Grose Valley in the background.
The rest of us are pumped !!
The rest if us are fully amped now !!
Next went Warick, a moment of hesitation the edge, everyone holding their breath, Alex shouts "Go!" ..."three two one JUMP!" and he leaps out into the void.

Alex jumped third and from my chosen filming point, I heard the countdown, I saw the ropes curling towards the valley floor, and millisecinds later, Alex plummeted past me wide-eyed and fixed on where he was headed.

Ming jumped, complete with headcam. Usually quiet and reserved, Ming surprised us all by vocalisng his free fall.

Finally, as the sun was setting it was my turn. Time sped up. The countdown started and Warick's still hanging onto the back of my harness.... it's now or never. In unison, everyone around yells "Go!" and I take a quick step to the edge, and looking back to see if Warick's still hanging on, propell myself outwards. WOW! What a rush!

 
There are, I think, four different video angles of the days efforts plus stills and my super-8 movie footage too !!
See the Video !!. [AVI 3.5Mb] [WMV 40Kb]

I cut down my video (some 45 mins) to a very rough and ready 20min version which mainly shows the scenery, plus the actual jumps. The jumps themselves are very quick, as you can imagine. (my wide angle converter added an unfair amount of distortion :-( ..... )