Backpacking is hard enough already — what with the walking and the blisters and the improvised toilet paper and the bugs and the bears and the many other ways nature can be a d*ck — but four French hikers in New Zealand encountered an entirely unexpected challenge on their trip: spontaneous structural failure.
Fortunately — in one of the few times this phrase has ever been uttered — no one was seriously hurt during the bridge collapse.
Reddit user mitchelo translated what the the French backpackers said during the video:
“Et après quatre jours de marches, 43 km, nous arrivons enfin, au dernier pont suspendu de notre great walk, et à l’arrivée.”
“And after 4 days walking, 43km (26.719 miles), we finally arrive, to the last suspension brige of our “great walk” and to the arrival.”
At the end of the video the white text : 8 meters fall, nobody seriously injured, we got lucky. Be careful. An advice: cross suspension bridge one by one.
Conspicuously absent from this translation is any mention of “sacrebleu!” or any of the other embarrassing thing native French speakers shriek during a bridge collapse — because the French backpackers are completely silent both during and immediately after the fall. This is an impressive testament to their stoicism and commitment to adventure, though their example might leave us all feeling a teensy bit embarrassed with how we react to stumbling into spider webs.
Some people in the Reddit thread about the video chastised the backpackers for walking in bridge-destroying unison, crossing in a group and not unfastening their packs while crossing over water, because these are all things that backpackers are supposed to do, apparently. And though the cause of the collapse was officially determined to be a faulty chain, I think it is important that we cut these French backpackers some slack.
Because if history has taught us anything, crossing bridges in New Zealand can be difficult.
