Adrenaline is legal...
Trip Start
Nov 02, 2007
1
17
22
Trip End
??? ??, 2008
Wanaka,
New Zealand
Saturday, March 8, 2008
So we jumped ship and headed to Wellington with enough time to visit the excellent Te Papa Museum. This museum rocks! And you don't have to be a braniac to appreciate it. Its marvelous because...
a) Its full of all sorts of interactive whizz bobbles designed to keep you entertained not comatose,
b) Its full of Maori history, Kiwi history and earthy history (Harmeet particularly liked the globe that showed how mankind has been migrating for centuries and fully appreciated this fact by spinning the globe repeatedly like a contestant on the Wheel of Fortune)
c)Its FREE!! Yippee!! That golden word that makes all backpackers do the running man & whoop for joy.
Now forget what all the guidebooks say about 2 hrs. Rock up to Te Papa early in the morn with yer packed lunch and stay all day - its that good!
Anyhoo - after an entertaining 3hrs we had to leave to catch our ferry over to the South Island. As we settled in to lounging for 2hrs, we couldn't believe how quickly 3 weeks had passed especially living in our Lilliputian sized car. We had become experts at freedom camping - sniffing out good sites to sleep, away from hoodlums and nasty council workers who might've been looking to fine us for freedom camping illegally (boo!). We had made great friends along the way, missed the deserted golden beaches of the northland, the almighty presence of the 2000 year old Kauri trees and the X files type night walks through the forest, with only the red glow of our headlights and the glowworms lighting the way. Most people say that you should hop, skip and jump straight over to the South Island but we loved the North Island and had big expectations for the Babylonian shores of the promised South Land.
We were met with rain. It rained so solidly in Nelson that Harmeet convinced herself it was dry. The famous Abel Tasman Park was never to meet our eyes as the rain drove us away and all the way to Cape Foulwind. It wasn't so foul after all and we swam in the cold sea, which we were in desperate need of, especially as Harmeets hair had dreaded itself into 1 big fat dreadlock and we were now producing a rather toxic scent akin to teargas, that the government could've bottled and used as biological warfare. After a rather refreshing paddle we walked to the sea-lion colony to point and go 'ooh' at these aquatic beauties, most of which were inactive apart from the playful pups frolicking in the sea...
Over the next few days we continued south down the west coast battling the rain and the cold, stopping at Punakaiki to see the fabulous Pancake Rocks, which were formed aeon's ago in different layers and have been eroded by the wind and sea into all sorts or groovy formations. Harmeet's overactive imagination could see all sorts or goblins, ogres and monsters frozen solid in the rocks, which I thought was normal for her, until she has a complete panic attack while walking to some caves in the pitch black that following night. It turns out the sounds of the pounding waves and the crashing of the sea against the rocks, gave her the colly wobbles big time and it was time for me to crush a Valium into her cup of tea that night...
Major wibbles over, the cave was rather disappointing, after walking into the deep, dark cavern filled with strange shadows and that felt like an 80's horror movie, where you're about to get death gripped and eaten alive by a giant half man, half kebab type monster, we came across 3, yes just 3 bloody glow worms...
The following day we got to Franz Josef exhausted and cold and splashed out on paying for a hot shower in one of the hostels in town. The $8 we spent got us a shower and free use of the hostel, so we indulged in making tuna pasta (an impossibility in the car on a 1 stove burner and with a pan that could only hold a thimble full of water) and we spent the evening in the cosy surroundings of the TV room watching The Italian Job. Oh how we missed walls and buildings!
Now the Franz Josef and Fox glaciers are amazing. They are! But we were so disappointed when we saw them. Why? Were we not impressed with natures ability to create giant rivers of ice that move only a few inches per day? Did we not realise that the creation of these 7000 year old glaciers was a bit more complicated than making a tray of ice cubes? Apparently not. The complacency of long term travel had struck. We had been wowed by the Perito Mereno glacier in Argentina. It was the mother of all things icy. We had watched it for hours as big chunks of it fell in a melodramatic thunder into the icy blue lake around it. It was magnetising. Franz and Fox were on the other hand, well, a little bit grubby, stubby and less Hollywood - if you know what we mean. Well we ended up giving ourselves a few slaps around the chops to get out of the 'been there, seen that' mentality and still appreciate the glaciers heaving mass...
And then where? The glorious Milford Sound? Nope. On our backpacker budget of zilch, we realised that we couldn't really afford to take a cruise around the Sounds without having to sell a kidney or 3 (and we worked out that we both needed to keep at least one each), so we bypassed the South Islands Holy Grail and headed to the warm and sunny climes of Wanaka. With the damp in our bones finally drying out, we set upon completing a foolish crusade we had started upon weeks earlier. Yes. Our mission should we choose to accept it, was to fling ourselves out of an airplane kamikaze sty-lee.
We booked ourselves in with Skydive Wanaka and was greeted by the stony faced mare at reception whose icy glance could give you a myocardial infarction.
Pancakes mmm...
Our nerves proceeded to twist themselves into a huge knot which could not be relieved by the pre jump golf, or clay pigeon shooting we tried at the rifle range opposite. Well the time had come. Were we men or mice? Harmeet was all mouse and had a last minute attack of hysteria and couldn't stop crying like a big girls blouse. Loads of people kept coming in from their jumps and rabbiting on about how amazing it all was, which did nothing to calm our nerves and all 10 of us sat there in silence. I however - Stanley the second, puffed out my chest like a heroic gladiator and was ready to meet my destiny with gravity. What did I have to be scared of anyway? Gravity is the weakest force in the universe...So we met our instructors - guys who had jumped anywhere between 10 - 15 thousand times & who are truly incredible people. Suited and booted and with Sandra, a resident Kiwi who was also jumping with us, we climbed into the plane to meet our fate at 15 000ft, with our DVD filmaking skydivers recording every quivering lip and nervous flatulent movement. The flight up was a surprising calm one. I was to jump first, Sandra 2nd and Harmeet last. From the air we could see Mount Cook in the distance and the lake beneath us. The vista and the instructors calm voice turned into a hazy distant blurb, as I listened to the beating of my heart and the gas in my belly.
As Harmeet sat at the back with a vacant grin the hatch opened and the rushing cold air hit my face. The instructor had given us all instructions, head back, shoulders back, pelvis forward, feet together and as he shuffled forward and we sat on the edge of oblivion all I could think was ' What do I do again?...'
Then all of a sudden we jumped and I suddenly realized the insanity of what I was doing. The cold air pushes against your body and your face, giving you a funky g force wobbly look. You spin around and the diver filming you tries to shake your hand and pinch your nose - well they try and do anything to make you engage and 'give it large' to the camera. You don't somersault on a tandem cos they have to use a static line, a small tiny shute to stabilise 2 falling bodies and slow your speed down, from an otherwise deadly 500mph to a more sensible 300mph (!). The free fall only lasted a minute, but felt like forever and it is true what the instructors tell you - you really don't feel like you're falling, cos your brain cannot comprehend the distance at 15 000 ft. The next thing I remember is the shute being pulled and thinking 'Damn, its nearly over...'
As I landed I saw Harmeet above me coming down and within 7 minutes it was all over. After doing a few endorphin induced running mans for the camera, we had hit a huge comedown - literally. We were both exhausted and drained and couldn't even string a sentence together.
Where's the Gin?
The adrenaline keeping us together had evaporated and we had been reduced to a pair of gibbering fools. Harmeet's teeth were incredibly painful, but thats what you get for grinning like a psychotic monkey for a minute of free-fall at 300mph. Within 10 minutes our DVD's and pics were ready and as we walked out the door, we told all the ghostly pale backpackers waiting for their dives that it was totally incredible and they would love every minute of it...Would we do it again? Absolutely. Would we so it solo? Most definitely. Would we do a bungee? Well we were heading to Queenstown, the mother of all adventure sports, so we would have to wait and see...
Comments
Just worked out how to use this thing!
Glad to see your still having a great time! How you manage to keep doing the blog I'll never know!
Cheers
Anthony
Welcome back
Nice to see the skydiving photos and to read a long, funny blog. x x