Where Is The 2nd Highest Bungee Jump In The World?

There is no verified second highest bungee jump in the world, because rankings differ from one source to the next, depending on whether permanent towers, dam walls, cranes and one-off jumps are counted together, and no governing body certifies the order. What can be stated is the claim from Queenstown's own operator: the Nevis Bungy, at 134 m, is, in the operator's words, the highest in New Zealand.

The question is genuinely hard, and not because the information is hidden. It is hard because "highest bungee jump in the world" means different things to different counters. A jump from a purpose-built tower, a jump from a dam wall and a jump from a helicopter are all bungee jumps, but they are rarely listed in the same table. Some tall jumps ran for a season and closed. Some records were set once by a single jumper and never repeated commercially. A website that ranks them has to make a judgement call about what belongs on the list, and different websites make different calls.

That is why the honest answer to this question starts with a refusal to guess. Any page that confidently names a number two is choosing one ranking scheme and quietly dropping the others.

What Queenstown does have is a claim that can be checked against the operator's own pages. AJ Hackett Bungy NZ, the only bungy operator found in Queenstown, describes its Nevis Bungy as 134 m / 439 ft and calls it, in its own words, the highest in New Zealand. That claim appears on the operator's Nevis Bungy page. Notably, the operator does not claim a world rank for it. The company calls its Kawarau Bridge site the "World Home of Bungy" and "the original", both attributed marketing claims about history rather than height, and it never says the Nevis is the highest, or second highest, on earth.

If you arrived at this question while weighing a Queenstown booking, the practical takeaway is simple: the jump you can actually book in Queenstown holds the tallest verified height in this country, and that is a fact you can plan around. The rest of this page works through what is known, what is not, and how to choose between the jumps that exist here.

For comparison shopping, three bookable products cover the spread: the big one, the historic one, and a combo that pairs the 134 m drop with a swing.

Why No Definitive World Ranking Exists For Bungy Heights

No definitive ranking exists because every published list applies its own rules about what counts as a bungy jump: some include only permanent commercial sites, while others count dams, cranes, gondolas, one-off record jumps, or sites that have since closed. With no industry body certifying heights or keeping a register, two reputable sources can disagree about second place and still be internally consistent, so no site is named here.

Think about what a ranking would have to control for. First, height itself: is it the distance from the jumping platform to the lowest point the cord allows, or to the ground or water? Those are different numbers for the same jump. Second, status: a jump that operated briefly and a jump running daily today are not really competitors, yet both appear in online lists. Third, category: a bungee jump from a fixed structure and a bungee from a moving platform such as a helicopter or hot air balloon are usually tracked separately, and some lists mix them anyway.

The result is that the "second highest bungee in the world" changes depending on who you ask, without anyone being wrong in an obvious way. A list built only on permanent towers gives one answer. A list that includes dam jumps gives another. A list written some years ago may include sites that no longer operate, which pushes the whole order around. This is not an argument against planning around height; it is an argument for trusting operator-stated figures for the jump you will actually take, over titles assigned by third parties.

Queenstown's operator is careful on this point in a way that is worth noticing. Its pages claim a national superlative for the Nevis, "the highest in New Zealand", and historical superlatives for Kawarau, "World Home of Bungy" and the world's first commercial bungy site, opened in November 1988. It does not publish a world height ranking for any of its sites. When a company that runs a 134 m jump declines to claim a world record, that restraint is itself information. The operator's company history page tells the 1988 story in its own words, including the claim that the Kawarau Bridge is recognised as the birth of adventure tourism in New Zealand.

A related question some readers land on is covered separately in the guide to how high the Queenstown bungy jumps are, which lists every stated height at all three local sites, and the deeper background sits in the guide to the highest bungee jump in the world.

How High Is The Nevis Bungy Compared With Everything Else In Queenstown?

The Nevis Bungy is 134 m / 439 ft, the tallest of the operator's three Queenstown sites by a wide margin. The Ledge Bungy, reopening for summer 26/27 per the operator, is 47 m off its platform. The Kawarau Bridge Bungy, the original site, is 43 m. Within one company's stated figures, the Nevis stands roughly three times the height of Kawarau, which makes the local comparison easy even though the world ranking is not.

That local spread matters more for your decision than any global title. A 43 m jump and a 134 m jump are different experiences in kind, not just in scale, and everything around them differs too. The Nevis jump is made from a cable car pod suspended over the canyon, in the operator's wording a cable-car pod jump, reached only by a 4WD Bungy Bus across private land, with the return ride included in the price and about 3.5 to 4 hours to allow for the whole trip. The Kawarau jump is from a historic bridge over a river, about 25 minutes by road from Queenstown, with free parking, free spectators and a 1.5 hour self-drive time budget.

The operator's own figure for the Nevis plunge is 8.5 seconds, a number it states plainly on its pages. No equivalent freefall duration is stated for the Kawarau jump, so none is repeated here. Recovery differs too, per the operator's FAQ: at Kawarau you are lowered into a boat after the jump, while at the Nevis you are lifted back up to the pod. These are the details that shape the day, and every one of them comes from the operator rather than from a ranking table.

The bookable product is the 134m Bungy, New Zealand's Biggest, rated 5.0 across 122 reviews, with the operator's price from NZD 395 and a minimum age of 13 and weight range of 45 to 127 kg. You can read the full rundown on the Nevis 134 m bungy tour page.

Should Height Be The Thing That Decides Your Jump?

Height is the most quoted number in bungy marketing and it is a poor sole basis for choosing. Age limits, weight ranges, transport, total time, price and recovery method all differ between Queenstown's two bookable sites, and a 43 m jump that suits a 12 year old or a 150 kg jumper may be the only option that fits. The Nevis at 134 m demands 13 years and 45 to 127 kg plus a half-day commitment.

Work the decision in order. First, eligibility: Kawarau Bridge Bungy takes jumpers from age 10 and 35 to 160 kg solo or tandem, with a tandem combined maximum of 235 kg and at most a 30 kg difference between partners; the maximum drops to 130 kg when the river is high. The Nevis takes 13 and up, 45 to 127 kg. Under 18s need adult consent at check-in, and under 14s need an adult aged 18 or over on site, who does not have to take part. Those rules come from the operator's pages and its FAQ.

Second, time and logistics. Kawarau sits on State Highway 6 in Gibbston Valley, about 25 minutes from Queenstown, open daily except Christmas Day, with check-in 15 minutes before your jump and the last jump 30 minutes before closing. Nevis departure times vary by day and there is no self-drive option at all; the 4WD bus is the only access, 45 minutes each way. A morning in Queenstown can absorb a Kawarau jump; the Nevis is closer to a half-day expedition.

Third, price. The operator's prices are "from" figures that change by date and time: Kawarau Bridge Bungy from NZD 320 adult, Nevis Bungy from NZD 395, and combos from NZD 460 upward depending on the pairing. Booking direct includes photos, video and an activity t-shirt per the operator, and cancelling or changing more than 24 hours ahead is fully refundable minus a 1.99% card fee, as the operator's FAQ page sets out.

Couples and families weighing the choice together will find more decision logic in the guide to which Queenstown bungy is best, and the age and weight rules are unpacked in the guide to the bungy jump age limit.

What Changes When You Add A Swing Or Catapult To The Height?

Adding a swing or catapult changes the price, not the height: the Nevis Bungy and Swing combo starts at NZD 620 with a stated NZD 100 saving, while the full Thrillogy of bungy, swing and catapult starts at NZD 805 with a stated NZD 210 saving. The heights stay as they are individually: a 134 m bungy, a 300 m swing arc and a 150 m catapult run.

The swing and catapult deserve their own numbers, because they are not variations of the bungy. The Nevis Swing covers a 300 m / 984 ft arc, which the operator calls the Most Famous Swing in the World, its own branding. The Nevis Catapult propels riders 150 m / 492 ft with up to 3Gs, in the operator's words, and that is the only figure set to quote from it. At the smaller site, the Kawarau Swing runs at 43 m, single, tandem or triple, and the Zipride covers 130 m at 60 kph.

For a reader who started at a world-ranking question and ended up comparing real options, a combo is often the sensible middle path. The Nevis Combo, Bungy & Swing pairs the country's tallest drop with the swing in one four-hour block, ages 13 and up, 45 to 127 kg, from NZD 620. It carries a 5.0 rating with no stated review count. The Thrillogy adds the catapult for a stated NZD 210 saving over the three singles, though it carries no rating at all, a gap stated once here rather than repeated. The operator's combos page lists the full pairing menu, including cross-site options such as Nevis Bungy with Kawarau Bungy from NZD 615.

There is also a nationwide discount rule worth knowing before you book anything: the operator takes NZD 50 off per activity when you book two or more, and NZD 70 off per activity for three or more, excluding the Zipride, with 20% off a future single activity for repeat customers. Those figures come from the operator's FAQ and apply to its prices, not to any platform's.

What Trips People Up When Comparing Bungy Heights

The common mistakes are trusting a single world ranking as fact, assuming "highest" claims are checked by anyone outside the operator, and mixing up categories such as towers, dams, swings and catapult jumps when comparing numbers. People also book on height alone and discover too late that an age minimum, a weight range or a half-day transport commitment rules out the jump they wanted. Each of these is avoidable with the operator's own stated figures.

The first trap is the ranking itself. A listicle naming a tallest or second tallest jump has usually merged permanent sites with one-off record attempts and closed operations, and it rarely says which. If a source does not distinguish those, its order is entertainment, not data. The second trap is unattributed superlatives. "Highest in New Zealand" is the Queenstown operator's own wording for the Nevis, and this site presents it that way deliberately; a claim repeated without attribution starts to sound like an independent measurement when it is marketing.

The third trap is category confusion. A 300 m swing arc is not a 300 m bungy drop, and a catapult distance is not a freefall height. Comparing a swing arc to a bungy height inflates the swing; comparing a catapult run to a drop misleads in the other direction. The table of stated Queenstown figures earlier in this article keeps each product's numbers separate for exactly this reason.

The fourth trap is booking on height and nothing else. Families have booked the Nevis before reading that the minimum age is 13, and heavier jumpers have arrived at the Nevis not knowing the range tops out at 127 kg while Kawarau runs to 160 kg solo. Under 14s need an adult on site even when the adult is not jumping. A five-minute eligibility check against the operator's FAQ saves a non-refundable cancellation, since cancelling inside 24 hours, a no-show, or deciding not to jump once there all forfeit the payment. If anything about your situation is unclear, the operator takes questions on 0800 286 4958 or +64 3 450 1300 before you book.

The fifth trap is timing. The operator's own advice is to book the Nevis Bungy four to six weeks ahead in summer, with the peak running 15 December to 15 January and the busiest days 30 December to 2 January. Outside peak, about 48 hours ahead is usually enough, though slots are never promised. Height might get you dreaming about a jump; the calendar is what actually secures one.

What you can book with confidence is the tallest stated jump in New Zealand, the 134 m Nevis Bungy, alongside the 43 m original at Kawarau Bridge, through Queenstown Bungy Jump and its bookable tour pages.

Common Questions About The 2nd Highest Bungee Jump

Where Is The 2nd Highest Bungee Jump In The World?

There is no confirmed answer. Published rankings disagree because they count different structures, one-off record jumps and closed sites, and no industry body certifies the order. This page names no second place jump; the verifiable claim is that Queenstown's Nevis Bungy is 134 m and, in the operator's words, the highest in New Zealand.

Is The Nevis Bungy The Highest In The World?

No such claim is made, including by the operator itself. The operator does claim historical firsts for the Kawarau Bridge, the world's first commercial bungy site, opened in November 1988.

How High Is The Nevis Bungy Compared With The Kawarau Bridge Bungy?

The Nevis Bungy is 134 m / 439 ft; the Kawarau Bridge Bungy is 43 m / 141 ft. Both figures are the operator's own. The Nevis plunge lasts 8.5 seconds by the operator's figure, while no freefall duration is stated for Kawarau.

Which Queenstown Bungy Is Right For A First Timer?

Eligibility usually decides. Kawarau takes jumpers from age 10 and 35 to 160 kg, with a tandem option and about 1.5 hours self-drive; the Nevis takes 13 and up, 45 to 127 kg, and about 3.5 to 4 hours with 4WD bus transport only. Both carry the operator's 24 hour cancellation rule.

Can You Combine The Highest New Zealand Bungy With A Swing?

Yes. The Nevis Combo, Bungy & Swing pairs the 134 m bungy with the 300 m arc Nevis Swing from NZD 620, which the operator says saves NZD 100. The Thrillogy adds the catapult from NZD 805, a stated NZD 210 saving.