Thirteen years before barlia's amazing jump, henry van asch and A.J. Hackett invented the special rope that made bungee jumping possible. In 1988 the two men started the world's first bungee jumping business in the small New zealand town of queentown. Some of the locals didn't think the new business would last very long. But they were wrong. Soon thousands of visitors were coming to queentown and paying to bungee jump off the kawarau Bridge, 43 metres above the river below. The bungee jumping craze had begun.