I had only been in the country for a single day, and somehow, jet-lagged and a little bleary-eyed, I found myself at the top of Auckland’s famous Sky Tower. It’s fun and a little thrilling under normal circumstances—just take the elevator up to the glassy observation deck and enjoy the sweeping views over volcanoes and green islands and a shimmering sea.
But this wasn’t that. Instead, I was outfitted in a tidy jumpsuit and stood on an open platform, tethered up and ready to leap from one of the tallest free-standing structures in the Southern Hemisphere. The wind gusted. A moment later, I jumped, plummeting 53 floors at more than 50 miles an hour toward the busy downtown streets below. I stuck the landing.
