For almost nine minutes, Karen Barnett stood on the edge of the Auckland Harbour Bridge, unable to jump.
Her heart was racing. Her body wouldn’t move. There had been several countdowns. The song she’d chosen had played for so long that it had finished and another had started.
“I truly believed I couldn’t do it. That’s probably the hardest part to explain about those nine minutes. I was getting frustrated with myself because I couldn’t make myself jump, but at the same time, some part of me genuinely believed it was impossible.”
But this wasn’t just about jumping off a bridge. Karen was 38 when she was diagnosed with incurable breast cancer.
“Cancer had taught me that life can change without warning. I had been given a fear I never chose. So this time, I wanted to face a fear that I had chosen. This fear belonged to me. I had chosen to stand on that platform, and I desperately wanted to choose the leap too.”
Eventually, she lept, and those nine minutes on the edge would change the way Karen saw herself long after her feet were safely back on solid ground.
Inspired by Karen’s courage to take the leap? Step onto the platform and experience the thrill for yourself. Book the Auckland Harbour Bridge Bungy.
Before Cancer
Before her diagnosis, Karen says much of her life was shaped by what had happened in the past and what might happen in the future.
She’d experienced trauma. She struggled with emotional regulation and anxiety. She was an overthinker and a self-described people pleaser who often prioritised everyone else’s happiness before her own.
Somewhere among all that thinking, worrying and trying to keep the peace, Karen says she was rarely simply here.
“The trauma had become part of my identity. It had influenced my choices, my relationships, my confidence and the way I saw myself. I don’t think I realised how much I had allowed what had happened to me to define me.”
Then she heard the words: “You have cancer,” and her life changed in an instant.
Suddenly, the things that had consumed so much of her energy were put into a very different perspective.
Cancer wasn’t just about Karen’s physical health. It made her look at her life in a completely different way. It made her stop and ask herself some really uncomfortable questions:
What am I doing with my life?
What am I waiting for?
Why am I giving so much of myself away?
Karen realised she’d spent years looking backwards at what had happened and forwards at what might happen. Meanwhile, life was happening right in front of her, and she was missing parts of it.
How Many Heartbeats Do We Get?
Karen calls cancer a gift.
Not because living with incurable cancer is easy—it isn’t—but because confronting her mortality changed the way she thought about being alive.
“The things I once feared suddenly seemed the size of an ant compared to the fear of losing my life.”
Time became precious to Karen in a way she didn’t understand before cancer.
“I often think about how we are each given a finite number of heartbeats while we are here on this earth. I became much more conscious of where I was spending mine — who I was giving them to, what I was giving them to, and whether those things were truly worthy of my heartbeats.”
The question she asked herself changed too.
“Instead of asking, “How much time do I have?”, I started asking, “What am I going to do with the time I have?””
Cancer didn’t magically make Karen fearless. She still has difficult days. She still overthinks. There are scans, treatment, and the uncertainty of living with an incurable disease. But Karen realised something:
“I don’t want to spend the time I’ve been given fearing the possibility of losing it. So I feel the fear, and I keep going. I have learned that courage isn’t the absence of fear. Sometimes courage is simply feeling terrified and choosing to take the next step anyway.”
Which brings us back to a certain… bridge.
“What the F*** Am I Doing?”
Karen didn’t sleep the night before her Auckland Harbour Bridge Bungy.
“The amount of nervous wees I was doing could probably have filled a bathtub!”
Even checking in felt surreal.
She started walking underneath the Auckland Harbour Bridge, looked down, and then realised how much higher she still had to go.
“My heart rate was definitely up there, and I could feel the fear and anxious energy moving through my body.”
Specifically:
“What the f*** am I doing? How the hell did I manage to get myself into this situation?”
Closely followed by the rather practical:
“How can I get myself out of this situation?”
But underneath the panic was a tiny part of her that knew she had to keep walking. She wanted her why to be bigger than her fear.
Nine Minutes on the Edge
Standing on the edge, Karen could understand intellectually what she needed to do, but her body had other ideas.
“Even when the countdown started — and there were several of them — my mind would get closer to accepting the idea of jumping, but my body wouldn’t move. There was no budging. It was like my mind and my body couldn’t find each other.”
Then her song finished, and another started. Karen remembers thinking: Could we change the song, please?
Maybe it was a distraction. Maybe avoidance. Whatever it was, something shifted. Karen started really listening to AJ Hackett crew member Caleb beside her.
“There was so much compassion and genuineness in the way he spoke to me. I could feel that unconditional positive regard. I could feel the belief he had in me. And that was something I was struggling so hard to find in myself.”
Looking back, Karen no longer sees those nine minutes as time spent failing to jump.
“I see them as nine minutes of preparation.”
She describes it as “building a fire.”
The jump was the fire she needed to light, but first she needed fuel.
Keeanu stepped in when Karen needed him, helping pull her supporters’ attention away when the pressure of being watched became too much.
With Keeanu and Caleb’s support, Karen gathered everything else.
“I was slowly becoming friends with the very thing I was desperately trying to escape.”
“My mind had to understand. My body had to trust. My fear had to be acknowledged rather than fought. My why had to become louder than the voice telling me I couldn’t. And eventually, all those things aligned. The fire finally caught.”
Karen didn’t become fearless; she didn’t need to. “I just finally had enough fuel to take the leap.”
They Let Me Choose
There’s a reason Karen still talks about Caleb and Keeanu. They understood that getting her to jump wasn’t the point. Choosing to jump was.
“They saw my fear, but they also understood that this wasn’t just about a bungy jump. They knew how important it was for me to work through that fear—to discover that I could do hard things. And the truth is, I was already doing hard things.”
They didn’t hurry her, and they didn’t give up when she hesitated.
“They let me stand on the edge. They let me be terrified. And they let me choose.”
That distinction mattered.
Karen didn’t need someone to promise that everything in life would be okay; she needed to discover what happened when fear was present and she moved forward anyway.
“Because now, when life throws something at me that is infinitely more frightening than standing on that platform, I have something to remember. I remember what it feels like to be terrified and not know what I’m capable of. I remember that I’ve stood on an edge before. I remember that fear doesn’t mean I have to stop. And I remember that I have stepped forward before.”
Karen puts what Caleb and Keeanu gave her that day beautifully:
“Caleb and Keeanu didn’t give me courage. They gave me the time and the space to discover that I already had it.”
Then She Jumped
After almost nine minutes, Karen leaped.
“I didn’t know I could scream like that until those first few seconds after I left the platform. It was pure fear, pure adrenaline — everything I’d been holding inside just came pouring out.”
Then, somewhere before the first bounce, fear transformed into something else.
“I felt liberated. Completely and utterly free.”
For those few seconds, there was no past or future. There were no scans. No treatment. No prognosis. No cancer.
“I was just alive. Completely present. And for someone who had spent so much time being afraid of what life might take from me, there was something incredibly powerful about choosing to take that moment for myself.”
“I Can Do Hard Things”
Karen has now completed two Auckland Harbour Bridge Bungy jumps, two Big Swings at Kawarau, two at Nevis, SkyWalk and multiple SkyRides.
What began as a terrifying challenge has become something of a personal reminder.
I can do hard things.
In 2026, Karen returned to SkyRide for the Daffodil Day Donation Drop.
“This time, I wasn’t doing it just for the adrenaline or for myself. I was doing it for everyone who has gone before me, everyone currently experiencing cancer, and everyone who will come after me.”
Sitting high above Auckland, Karen found herself thinking about the woman she’d once been.
“I was looking back at the person I used to be — the person who thought she couldn’t do hard things — and realising just how far she’s come.”
What Are You Waiting For?
Karen wants us to stop waiting.
“We’re waiting for the right time, the right weather, the right circumstances, the right amount of money, the right opportunity. We wait for the weekend, the holiday, the celebration, the next milestone. We tell ourselves we’ll do it when things settle down, when we’re less busy, when we have more time.”
But there will always be something.
“But that moment with someone you love? You don’t get to put that in the diary and guarantee it will still be there tomorrow.”
Cancer, Karen says, completely changed her idea of later.
And that doesn’t mean she’s now cramming every day with enormous bucket-list adventures.
“Sometimes it’s sitting on the couch. Sometimes it’s having a cuppa. Sometimes it’s a conversation that goes absolutely nowhere. Sometimes it’s laughing until your stomach hurts. Sometimes it’s sitting beside someone you love and not saying anything at all.”
Those moments aren’t filler between the big moments. They’re life too.
“Go now. Say it now. Love them now. Make the memory now. Take the trip. Have the bloody cake. Stop feeling guilty for resting. Put the phone down. Sit with the people you love and actually be with them.”
Take the Leap
Karen already lives with a fear most of us would do anything to avoid.
So why deliberately seek out more?
Karen laughed when we asked her. Then she gave us an answer we haven’t stopped thinking about.
“Ironically, the fear I choose gives me a sense of control over the fear I didn’t choose.”
“When I deliberately seek out something that scares me, I get to choose the fear. I get to step towards it, rather than have it thrust upon me. And, importantly, I get the opportunity to create a different ending. There is something incredibly empowering about that.”
If Karen could return to that platform now, she wouldn’t tell her frightened former self that everything was going to be fine.
She wouldn’t tell her to stop shaking; she wouldn’t even tell her not to be scared.
She’d tell her: “It’s about discovering that fear can be there without being in charge. It’s about choosing to step towards something instead of always stepping away.”
And then, just before the countdown, Karen would tell her one final thing:
“You have no idea how much life is still waiting for you. So don’t let fear make this decision for you. Take the leap. Not because you know what’s going to happen, but because you don’t. You have no idea how much this moment is going to change the way you see yourself. So don’t wait until you’re fearless. You might be waiting forever. Take the leap.”
Karen’s story embodies what Live More. Fear Less. really looks like.
FAQs:
Where does the Auckland Harbour Bridge Bungy jump take place?
The jump takes place from a platform suspended directly underneath the Auckland Harbour Bridge. Jumpers walk out along a walkway beneath the bridge structure high above the water to reach the jump area.
What happens if a jumper hesitates on the edge?
The jump crew will not rush, push, or force anyone off the platform. Crew members work through multiple countdowns, offer calm encouragement, and give jumpers the time and space needed to choose the leap on their own terms.
Can jumpers choose their own music on the Auckland Harbour Bridge platform?
Yes. Jumpers can select a specific song to play over the platform sound system while preparing, getting harnessed, and waiting for the countdown.
Can friends and family come out to watch the Auckland Harbour Bridge Bungy?
Yes. Supporters can accompany jumpers out to the bridge platform to watch the leap up close, with the crew actively managing the space so jumpers don’t feel overwhelmed by spectators.
What other AJ Hackett adventure activities are available in New Zealand?
Alongside the Auckland Harbour Bridge Bungy, AJ Hackett operates activities across New Zealand, including the SkyWalk, SkyJump, and SkyRide in Auckland; the Taupō Bungy and Swing,; and the Kawarau Bridge and Nevis bungy jumps and swings in Queenstown.
