Jimi Hunt - A bit mental: one mans mission to lilo the Waikato and live more awesome

Jimi Hunt is an Auckland-based designer and entrepreneur. He is one half of the creative force behind Live More Awesome and the builder of the Worlds Biggest Waterslide.

JIMI HUNT

All opinions contained in this book are those of the author. Before making any change to your treatment regime, please consult a medical professional.

First published in 2013

Copyright Jimi Hunt 2013

All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reproduced or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic or mechanical, including photocopying, recording or by any information storage and retrieval system, without prior permission in writing from the publisher.

Allen & Unwin
Sydney, Melbourne, Auckland, London
Level 3, 228 Queen Street
Auckland 1010, New Zealand
Phone: (64 9) 377 3800

83 Alexander Street
Crows Nest NSW 2065
Australia
Phone: (61 2) 8425 0100
Email: info@allenandunwin.com
Web: www.allenandunwin.com

Cataloguing-in-Publication details are available from the
National Library of Australia
www.trove.nla.gov.au

ISBN 978 1 74331 383 1

eISBN 978 1 74343 225 9

Set in 12.5/17 pt Bembo by Post Pre-press Group, Australia
Map by Janet Hunt

To all the people who picked me up
when I was down. Thank you.

Follow Jimis journey to Lilo The Waikato River.

CONTENTS

I never thought that Id be sitting here writing a book. Ever. Especially one about my life. I mean, dont get me wrong: Ive lived a more interesting life than most, but I live in New Zealand and I havent even been on Shortland Street, the TV show, like 87 per cent of the population, so I feel a little strange to be doing this. What am I supposed to write about? Do I talk right here at the start about the crazy antics I used to pull? I have to write how many words? Really? Shit, I dont know. Shit. Can I say shit? I dont know either but Im sure an editor will delete this sentence if Im overstepping my literary bounds. My point is, Im just an ordinary man who has done some silly things. People seem to identify with my story because in this day and age were all A Bit Mental. So its actually refreshing for people to see someone acknowledge the fact that they have depression, talk about it and make it okay for others to talk about it as well. At least, thats what people have been telling me. I just had a crazy idea...

My name is Jimi. You will already know this because my name is on the front of this book as the author, clever hey? I was a lucky kid, born to parents in Wellington, New Zealand, who were married and are still together today. Parents who are still together is a thing that I value in todays strange world. I had a wonderful upbringing; I was pretty good at sport and represented North Harbour in a few of them, all with the unwavering support of my parents. I went to a private schoolI didnt like it much at all, but I appreciated the education.

Basically, I had a great childhood. No one beat me, no one abused me, and life was generally all good, but my brain always worked a little differently to other peoples. I had some odd compulsions, like getting a buzz from falling from a great height. Despite them, and the umpteen concussions they caused, my life was actually pretty damn cool. What Im trying to say is that even with a perfect upbringing things can go wrong. And they did, but Ill get to that later...

Probably the most unusual thing about me is that I dont drink alcohol and never have. In New Zealand this is considered strange. Very strange. We have a culture of heavy drinking and most of our social activities are based around or include alcohol. There are three main reasons I dont drink:

I literally cannot tolerate the taste of alcoholI find it repulsive.

I like to be in control of myself and my situationgetting drunk is not really for me.

I have a strange compulsion to be different from everyone else.

For me, the third reason is the most important. Almost everyone in New Zealand drinks. Okay then, I wont and, surprisingly, Ive never needed to. As a teenager who didnt drink, turning up to parties to watch friends getting drunk and having a good time was a challenge. I could have relented to peer pressure and started drinking or I could have got sick of it and gone home.

But Ive always liked parties. I like having fun and I like socialising with my friends. Its what makes me happy. So I started doing what came naturally to meacting like an idiot. As I said, I went to a private school, and most of the kids had houses with swimming pools. We had lots of pool parties, and I took to jumping off high places into swimming pools of all shapes and sizes. It was one of the only things I could do that made me feel scared. The fear made me feel aliveI loved the thrill of it. And, best of all, no one ever bothered me about not drinking because they were too busy watching me do fancy flips and making a big splash.

So, I like to be scared, but I dont scare easily. Organised extreme activities like bungy jumping and skydiving always leave me feeling let down. Instead of commercial opportunities, Ive had to turn to more spur-of-the-moment freestyle thrills. In other words, I made them up as I went along.

This is my story. All of what comes next is true. Especially the parts that Ive made up.

Depression (and head knocks) really messes with your mind and makes it hard to process and remember things. I did write this as honestly as I could, but some of the stories I can only remember the basics of and the details are foggy. If youre in this book and its not how you remember it happening, sorryits how I remember it and Ive tried my best to get it right.

Jimi

PART ONE:
THIS IS JIMI

A while back, when I was at university and on holidays, I was on Waiheke Island with my friend Tim. We had been told of a cliff that was worth diving off. Our instructions were rather rudimentary: around to the right from Little Oneroa. So we swam, although were not great swimmers, for an hour. Shattered, we finally found a place that we thought might be it. We could see the cliff was slightly worn where people had beaten a light track, and there was a bare patch around the rock 17 metres above the water. We figured that must be the take-off point for jumping. There was a crevice about five metres wide cut out of the cliff with a blowhole about two metres across at the bottom. The waves would crash into the crevice making a loud whoosh and shooting water up into the air. With the ebb and flow of the waves, the depth of the water to jump into varied from two to four metres. So there I stood, about to jump over rocks into a small hole 17 metres below, and I had to time my jump with the incoming waves. I had no idea if this had ever been done before. It turned out I wasnt the first to do it, but it sure as hell made me really scared. And it felt beautiful.

Jumping off that cliff was my first foray into freestyle adventures that eventually led to paddling down the Waikato River on a Lilo. I realised on that jump into the blowhole that I needed high-energy thrills to satisfy my own needs and to make me happy. I wanted to be happy and I was having a hard time figuring out what happy meant for me.