QV1 Urban Descent Perth - Building Abseil for Charity
QV1 Urban Descent Perth
On Thursday 19th 2018 I completed one of the last super scary things I will do before becoming a mother, who know's it may be my last every optional scary thing I do. I hear being a parent has some of its own hair-raising experiences, so I shall never say never.
I abseiled and ziplined down the Perth QV1 building, QV1 is the fourth tallest building in my hometown of Perth, at 40 storeys high and just over 160 meters (525 feet) its no small feat.
At this stage, you may be asking why on did I undertake this crazy death-defying act?
Simply because I can, I am an ostomate, as in I have a stoma and a permanent ostomy bag for life, in the beginning, I believed my life would be severely restricted by having one but without it, I would be dead and would never be able to attempt such an act.
I also do it to:
My reason's have not changed from my original Training Post, so I am quoting myself.
- Raise awareness about ostomies and ostomates,
- To break the stigma associated with having an ostomy,
- To give hope to anyone who is still struggling through the stages of finding themselves again after a life-changing event,
- To raise money for support services for ostomates.
-- Thank you to @yogajill and @lynncoyle1 who both donated hard earned SBD for the cause.
Somedays all you need is someone who has been there and done that to know that there is going to be a positive tomorrow to look forward too.
The Descent
I can't say I wasn't scared as you will clearly see from the below clip I was shaking like a leaf and openly ask my self why am I doing this as I start over the edge. What I can say is the lead up to the event was worse than the event itself. Well with the exception of stepping off the edge on the zip line after looking down.
As an anxious person, I did have a few nightmares two that stuck in my head was the rope breaking or me letting go of the rope both resulting in me plummeting to my death.
My hubby @shai-hulud had to laugh as I told him about these before reminding me that there is more than one rope holding me up at any one time and I was not in control of them all.
In truth there was actually three ropes holding me up, of which I only had one to control, the other two were backups in case either of my nightmares came true. As it turns out, none of my fears were founded and I make it from top to bottom without too many hiccups.
What I wasn't prepared for was the inability to hold myself against the granite wall we were abseiling down. It proved a much harder task then the training prepared us for. Due to an awning at the bottom of the building, the third rope was also a guide away from the building with meant a freefall abseil required for the last ten or so floors.
This meant I had a constant pulling away from the building sensation that scared the crap out of me and made me squeal more than once. My inability to hold myself on the wall also added a lot of pressure to my back, which turned into pain around floor 30, making the abseil in all honesty, a less than pleasurable experience.
I hurried down the building wishing I was much closer to the bottom then I was, dreading the zip line that was to follow. So much so that I even thought about pulling out. I had done what I had planned on doing and didn't fancy another painful 10 minutes hanging from a rope.
Enter Miss Gabby...
She desperately wanted to complete the zip line, so the night before the event we made it possible as a surprise to the brave young ostomate. The deal was I would do it with her, so do it I did.
To my surprise besides the initial part of getting attached to the contraption that was going to assist me to zip line, as it was more of an assisted freefall than a zip line, and once I got used to the heights, the actual descent was quite pleasurable, I even let go of my harness long enough to do some Wonderwoman poses and fly like a bird into landing.
My lovely hubby @shai-hulud once again spent the day filming the event so we have a full account of the day from different angles. He also gave me a crash course in video editing, so he would no longer have to do it for me, so I apologise in advance for any decline in future quality.
Please note that if you do suffer from a fear of heights, you have been warned, there are extreme heights contained within this video.
Added bonus of the day, both Gabby and I got featured on Channel Ten News, which raised much-needed awareness for those who live with an ostomy.
DONE and DUSTED!
So pleased to have completed both the descent and the zip line!
Thank you so much for stopping by to read about my adventures. I hope you have also had an exciting week! What's the most exciting this you did this week? Leave a decent comment below for an upvote and some good old interaction.
Power Up and Steem ON!
Want some inspiration, a hint or a maybe a laugh, I'm pretty funny I have been told. CHECK out these posts, all brought to you by @insideoutlet!
A note to myself. Procrastination is a lot like....
Throwing myself off a building, but let's start with a cliff...
If you like any posts below this point please consider upvoting a more recent post as these while very useful have already paid out.
My hubby @shai-hulud is also a great steemian worth a follow, check out some of his knowledge bank below:
Steemit Week 1: Who Are You
Don't get hooked by a Phishing scam. Actual steps you can take to protect yourself.
Steemit Day One #2: Why lock an Empty House
Welcome to Steemit. Day one: Get ready for the learning curve.
What to know more about @shai-hulud and I Check out these posts:
Butt naked with 2500 other cruise line passengers! Featured in @qurator & @asapers
Love isn’t always shit free. Featured in @thesteemengine and #themagnificentseven
How I got flipped Inside Out... For REAL! Featured in @thesteemengine
Did YOU know that your upvote needs time to recharge? If not check out this post below, if you like it please consider upvoting a more recent post as this one has now paid out.
Steem & Voting Power, how not to waste it!
This is AMAZING! I absolutely adore your Wonder Woman/Girl Power bling, and totally bow to your courage and compassion in not only jumping off a perfectly good building (you know, like asking people who go skydiving why they'd jump out of a perfectly good plane...LOL), but in spreading ostomy awareness and helping Miss Gabby with the zip line.
To be honest, I opened the video on YouTube so I could "like" it, but only got about ten seconds in before I chickened out. I can even comprehend pushing through my fear to actually do a descent like this. Well done!
via GIPHY
And yes, @cailliyork is my eldest - some day I hope to get our other two here on Steemit. 😊
Oh, and as for the most exciting thing this week? Hubby & I heard hawks calling outside, and I managed to get a short, partial video of one of the mating pair "buzzing" us! It's probably not good enough quality to post, but the experience was awesome!
I always told people it was because I can and also because it's a fact that more people die in the plane than jumping out of it. But I don't think that takes into account the quantity that actually fly over jump out of planes lol...
Haha if you only got a few seconds you will have missed my puppet moves on fast-forward lol... it's actually quite hilarious. lol.
That is super cool about the hawks, I love wildlife but they are so hard to capture a good shot when they move all the time lol. Thank you for stopping by and your lovely comments. I was having a rather shitty moment and you made me smile. :)
Okay, that's a very good point... on both counts... did I mention we live under the flight path of a local airport. 😮 😉 😜
OMG, fast-forward can look amazing (ly hysterical!). I may have to take a few deep breaths and check it out again, just for the giggles.
Yeah, we're wicked lucky that where we live (besides all the planes flying overhead, and to be fair, we're far enough away from the airport that they're usually pretty high up there) has a ton of wildlife to stalk... I mean, photograph. I get enough chances that every now and then, one turns out fairly decent.
And you're very welcome - glad I could make your shitty moment a bit better (and amazingly enough, before my first cuppa kicked in - LOL).
Hope you're having a splendiferous day!
You did it!!!! I am so happy you posted the pics. That looked crazy.
I did!!! Terrified but I did it lol.
The point is, no matter how terrified you were, you did it. You didn't let that stop you and that's what makes you, you :)
💜💜💜 thank you beautiful lady!
Congratulations!! You did it!! I had to shut the video off because it was making me a little nauseous haha I'm so glad you and Gabby were featured on the local News there too...so cool that you both did the zipline also! I'm sure it is something neither of you will ever forget. And thankfully Peter was there to film it and to be the level-headed voice of reason to get you off that ledge haha
Thanks for the shout-out, but I was honored to be a little part of your courage to raise funds for such an important cause. You are awesome!!
Thanks Lynn! I did it and I survived. I understand I was a bit nauseous too, I am pretty sure that my eyes were shut for some of the looks down, I only remember seeing it on the video not in real life lol, sensory overload.
haha or out of body experience...but kind of backwards :)
Wow! You're at it again. I have learnt to buckle my seat belt when reading your posts, lol.
Haha not all of them are that bad lol. Thanks for stopping by to check out a more extreme one. Lol..
That's so cool that nothing can stop you and you did a very courageous thing! I'm in love with adrenaline but never really got enough courage to try zippling :D
Respect and keep on rocking! :)
Zip lining/flying foxes are a lot of fun and I highly recommend finding time to do it. If your ever in Penang, Malaysia. They have the most awesome high ropes adventure park called Escape thay has zip lines from one adventure to another as well as an assisted bungee and high flying arobatic stuff too. We went back to Penang, just to go there again.
Awesome! Thanks for details, I will keep in mind :D
Wow!! You are an inspiration! I'm afraid I wouldn't have done nearly as well...and my pants may have ended up a little wet. LOL! Can't wait to see what you do next.
haha, all I can say is lucky I am an ostomate and couldn't poop myself out of fear lol. So glad it's done, not sure what the next adventure will be, I have a son coming in a few months so probably nothing so death-defying lol.
Oh, man! You are brave! Just reading this made me shaky & Anxious!
Haha, I can understand that lol. Thanks for checking it out anyway lol. Are you related to @traciyork?e
Wow, you managed to do it! Out of curiosity, how do you get permission to abseil off someone's building?
The whole thing was set up by a chatity company. They organised everything. It happens once a year. There were about 1000 of us that did it over three days.
hahaha exactly although some were less willing to dive straight in than others lol.
Congratulations. You are way braver than I am. I would never have had the guts to do this. Looks like you truly had an amazing time.
It was fun albeit terrifying at the same time. I was just super glad it was over and I didnt break myself. Lol.
Thanks a lot @insideoutlet for sharing that
Thanks @bmotives. I appreciate you taking time to read my post. Did you get a chance to watch the video.?