Kiwi adrenaline junkie Mike Heard has cracked the world bungy-jumping record for the most jumps in 24 hours, making 103 jumps in 10 hours.
His record attempt will be used to raise funds for the Cure Kids medical research charity, and so far he has raised about $NZ5000 ($A4,000), with an "ambitious" target of $NZ30,000 ($A24,000).
Heard's love of bungy jumping began five years ago and hasn't dimmed.
"Once you get over the fear it's really, really enjoyable - it's quite a free feeling."
The previous record for the most bungy jumps in 24 hours was held by South African Bill Boshoff who performed 101 bungy jumps in 14 hours and 23 minutes at Bloukrans River Bridge, South Africa, on May 10, 2002.
The pronunciation of Whakatane, has been censored in cyberspace due to its close proximity to the offensive F-word. The censorship was uncovered when a visiting tourist could not search for “Whakatane” on the district council’’s own online service, because the word was considered vulgar.Visiting Auckland web developer John Henry used his laptop in the middle of the town to connect to the council’’s wireless service, called Freenet.He was shocked to discover his Google searches for Whakatane” services were rejected by the content filter.
The Freenet website’’s explanation was: “The content is filtered so this service is for legitimate use.” Whakatane District Council spokesman Barney Dzowa said that the problem had been discovered and the name added to a list of words capable of overriding the content filter.“The content filter is an American-based product, and it does a phonetic analysis of what has been typed in,”” News.com.au quoted him, as saying.
“Whakatane, to the system, sounds like an F-word,” he added.
On Tuesday at the EAA AirVenture, the big annual airshow, a New Zealand inventor unveiled what he calls "the world's first practical jetpack". The pilot was 16-year-old Harrison Martin, son of the inventor, Glenn Martin, 48, who has spent 27 years developing the device. He hopes to begin selling them next year for $100,000 each.
That's not cheap but, as Robert Thompson, director of the Bleier Centre for Television and Popular Culture at Syracuse University, says: "There is nothing that even comes close to the dream that the jetpack allows you to achieve."
Buck Rogers and James Bond used fictional jetpacks and, since the 1960s, several real jetpack designs have been forged from metal, plastic and propellant. None has flown more than a minute. Mr Martin's can run for 30 minutes.
At first sight, the jetpack does not look like the sci-fi classics. It's almost as tall as a person and its rotors are encased in two large ducts that look a bit like cupcakes. It rests on three legs. Mr Martin has somehow made the future look both sleek and nerdy.
"If someone says 'I'm not going to buy a jetpack until it's the size of my high school backpack and has a turbine engine in it,' that's fine," he said. "But they're not going to be flying a jetpack in their lifetime."
It is also not a jet "if you're very pedantic", as Mr Martin acknowledged. A gasoline-powered piston engine runs the large rotors. "This thing flies on a jet of air," he said.
Or, more simply, it flies. With the startling power of its twin rotors and a 200-horsepower engine behind my shoulder-blades screaming like an army of leaf blowers, it felt almost as if I was doing the lifting myself, with muscles I did not know I had.
All Blacks training schedule, 20 flights, two ferry sailings and lengthy delays on the roads as Wellington was hit by a mid winter storm
Wellington residents awoke to southerly gales of up to 117kmh lashing the region.
The strongest winds struck this morning, with wind speeds of 117kmh registered at Mt Kaukau about 6am, while the suburb of Kelburn registered winds of 106kmh.
Kiwi Bill Ward with an army of supporters is heading back to Bonneville salt flats (Scene of New Zealands “World’s Fastest Indian” hero, Burt Munro) to fulfil a life long dream, in 1979, he became the first New Zealander to build and race a car down a 4.82km timed course on the Bonneville Salt Flats. He hit 275.7kmh in a 1930 Model A Roadster home-built by Kawerau crewman Casey Hill and returned two more times.
"Technical difficulties" with time-keeping stopped those being accepted as official records, he said."I have never officially beaten the records."
Now he was aiming high 378kmh and planned to do it in a heavily modified 1927 Model T powered by a 1948 Ford V8 engine.
The car has been custom-built in drag-racing fan Barb Sundgren's Whakamarama garage, near Tauranga.
Ms Sundgren and her partner, Colin Prouse helped build the car and supplied the engine.
More than 100 supporters plan to accompany Mr Ward to Utah.
His army of supporters included the local hot rod ladys who stripped off to raise fun for the Kiwi. A total of fifty-five Kiwi hot rodding and drag racing women have stepped outside their comfort zone, agreeing to disrobe and grace the sponsored pages of this unique publication…a hallmark in the history of hot rodding. The women range in ages from their 20’s to their 60’s and most have a high profile in their sport.
Only in New Zealand 
