'GMA' Host Robin Roberts Jumps From New Zealand Sky Tower
By Kelly Coffey-Behrens on February 4, 2023 at 12:45 PM EST
"Good Morning America" host Robin Roberts traveled around the world to visit New Zealand on "an expedition of a lifetime."
Earlier this week, Roberts boarded a helicopter to get a bird's-eye view of the stunning glaciers in New Zealand, however, the glaciers are quickly vanishing due to rising temperatures. While high in the sky, the morning talk show host saw the shrinking ice first-hand.
"It looks like a waterfall but it’s ice falling off the cliffs and smashing. So you can see it disappearing right in front of our eyes," longtime glacier pilot Michael Clarke explained to Roberts.
Not only did Roberts get to see the natural beauty of New Zealand, but she also went to new heights when she jumped from the tallest building in the Southern Hemisphere -- the SkyTower in Auckland.
Robin Roberts Takes Giant Leap Of Faith
The "Good Morning America" host says she is "ready to live more and fear less” as she jumped from 53 stories up off of the SkyTower in Auckland.
Yesterday, she teased the jump on her Instagram page, writing, "I made it all the way to the edge of the #SkyTower in Auckland, NZ…the tallest building in the southern hemisphere…but did I really make the jump? You’ll have to tune in tomorrow to find out! 😬"
Spoiler alert... she jumped!
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Roberts called the experience a "once-in-a-lifetime thrill" as she traveled 52 miles per hour jumping from the building. Afterward the jump, she said she felt invincible.
“I'm really feeling like I can do anything. Just like when you do this, you feel there's nothing you can't do,” she said. “Being out there over 600 feet high. Looking out the wind. Beautiful.”
According to the ABC show, "over 2.5 million people have taken the jump at the famed Kawarau Bridge in Queenstown, with the AJ Hackett bungy company, which first opened in November 1998."
Marc Perry, who works for AJ Hackett Bungy company, said, “It was originally two crazy Kiwis -- A.J. Hackett and Henry van Asch, A.J. Hackett himself actually took himself to Paris, France. And in 1987, jumped off the top of the Eiffel Tower, spreading' a worldwide exposure of bungy jumping, and what it means, and what it represents."
Robin Roberts Takes In Natural Beauty Of New Zealand
As mentioned earlier, Robin Roberts also went sightseeing as she boarded a helicopter to get a bird's-eye view of the stunning glaciers in New Zealand.
Unfortunately, the glaciers are quickly vanishing due to rising temperatures. While high in the sky, the morning talk show host saw the shrinking ice first-hand.
"It looks like a waterfall but it’s ice falling off the cliffs and smashing. So you can see it disappearing right in front of our eyes," longtime glacier pilot Michael Clarke explained to Roberts when in the helicopter.
Local scientist and assistant professor, Brian Anderson, also spoke to "Good Morning America," explaining that of the nearly 3,000 glaciers, "most of them [are] very small ... but we've been losing really rapidly. In fact, it's accelerating."
"New Zealand researchers predict that in a decade, many of the country’s important glaciers will be gone," Robin Roberts said in her piece. "That will impact the landscape, the water supply, and the people who rely on the glaciers to make a living."