Skydive day...
Trip Start
Jun 26, 2008
1
61
67
Trip End
Ongoing
Queenstown, South Island, New Zealand
Saturday, March 14, 2009
Skydive day. We wake up to the alarm for the third day in a row and excitedly get ourselves ready to head back into Queenstown to get to the skydive shop. We park up and grab a quick bite for breakfast before heading to NZone. The shop is already open and a number of people are already there filling in the appropriate paperwork in the briefing room, including chatty American guy called Nick who would eventually be in the plane with us. Everyone looks pretty nervous and isn't talking much as we watch a video of peoples experiences and then get a briefing to explain the process of what is going to happen. We are quickly ushered into a waiting van which speeds us to the dropzone near to the remarkable. It is a perfectly clear day over Queenstown and no wind, a perfect day to fall from a plane at 15000ft hitting 200kph. We go from the coach into the immaculate reception area where there are a few smiling people who have just jumped and a few more coming in on open parachutes, always a good sign
Borat and the remarkables
. We are told a little about the centre and it turns out that they drop 100 people a day on clear days like this, hence there isn't a lot of messing about. We are given time to make a last minute toilet break and then we are into the fitting room for jumpsuits, helmets, goggles and gloves. We are introduced to our jumpmasters and our videographers, who are typical of the kind of people you might see falling to the ground ten times a day, all in their mid-twenties and well up for it on such a good day weatherwise. We go through our briefing on what position to assume when we get out of the plane and what to do, which is essentially to enjoy the view and leave most of the rest of it to our jumpmasters. We are hurried to our plane, kim me and nick together with three jumpmasters, and two videographers squeeze into the back of a Cessna with a Perspex door to the void outside. With the positions in the plane, Nick is out first and looking very nervous indeed, kim is out second and i'm last, not really knowing whether this is a good thing or not. We take off and lurch into the air and quickly climb to 15000ft, the nearby mountains giving us an indicator or when the chutes will be deployed. Everyone chats in the plane and makes stupid faces for the cameras and i watch the view, able to see all the way to Mt Cook, some 5h drive away as the air is so clear. Checking the altimeters we are soon at our drop height, the door opens and the cold air blasts in
Chute opening..
. At this stage you think i would be nervous but i am genuinely looking forward to this, unlike the swing a couple of days ago, plus the way we are cramped in the back of this plane it almost seems like the sensible thing is to leave via the door. Nick is looking slightly uncomfortable but really has no choice in the matter as he is swung to the door with feet under the plane and then drops like a stone, out of view. Kim and her instructor shuffle forward and they are gone in a heartbeat and i'm next. We shuffle forward as one and my videographer is already outside and hanging on. I tuck my legs under the plane and wait to be pushed. The initial drop is gut wrenching but the feeling only lasts about a second as i see the plane pull away above us to land. Face down now the ground rushing towards us, but you feel more like a spectator with the wind in your face rather than you are plummeting to earth at terminal velocity. Its an amazing feeling and the view is spectacular from this height. Snow covered mountain ranges for as far as the eye can see and the lake and Queenstown below. The videographer shows up and takes some shots but all too quickly is see that we pass the mountain tops, this i know is where the chute will be pulled and we'll be yanked to a virtual halt, sure enough at 4500ft i feel the chute deploy and we're hauled violently to a slow descent. The difference in motion between the freefall, which feels like flying, and the almost instant sea sickness feeling of being on the parachute is a bit of a shock as i expected a calm float to the ground, but the jumpmaster wants to have some fun and puts us into tight spins to get us on the ground ahead of Kim, this makes me feel pretty sick almost to the point of throwing up but we're soon near the ground and i pull my feet to my chest and we slide onto the wet grass on our asses
Dusk
. Immediate elation for being on the ground and not being dead and watching Kim land behind me. We hug and make our way inside, the whole thing could only have taken twenty mins but it was definitely one of the best experiences i've had on this trip. We sit around for a while and watch some of the uncut footage on the video screens while my stomach recovers from the parachute bit. Pretty soon though we are ushered back onto the coach and do the return journey in almost complete silence, everyone reflecting on what they have just experienced. Once we are back in town we have several hours before we can collect our videos so we wander back to the van as my stomach is getting worse not better. Minute by minute i get pretty bad cramps which feel like food poisoning and eventually i'm doubled over in pain - not a good sign. Eventually after about an hour they subside and i still don't know what caused them. Kim seems to think that fast moving air entered my bowels somehow - although from which end she didn't say.
After this we have the whole afternoon to chill in Queenstown on a beautiful Saturday afternoon. There is a fair amount going on at the lakeside with stunt riding, wakeboarding, parachuting and skydivers some of which are trying to hit a raft in the bay. We watch for a while and then get a seat at a restaurant in town where i have gorgeous steak sandwich and local beer and relax in the sun, with the kind of contentedness that has sometimes been found on this trip
Exit
. We wander through the local market and then head to the internet cafe as kim has a headache again, I update almost all of the blog that i have missed and then we decide to head out to Glenorchy as this is where we are doing the walk the following day. Halfway through the afternoon however i had discovered that i had left my flipflops at the camping ground. Feeling somewhat attached to them after discovering their homing properties in Koh Phagnan we get to the camping ground and find that they are exactly where we left them that morning. We head on as the sun sets into Glenorchy and eventually find our way to the side of the lake where the main camping ground is. Literally almost a hundred people camping here after not seeing anyone for about 50km with full fires blazing. We quickly set up and get some sleep after an adventurous day.
