A good lie in.......are we gonna dive today??
Trip Start
Jun 11, 2008
1
139
349
Trip End
May 14, 2009
Taupo,
North Island,
New Zealand
Friday, October 17, 2008
Craig, Lorna and me all had a big fry up to soak up last nights beers. Damn fine stuff. We then headed off for a walk to the lake. Lake Taupo is actually as big as the whole of Singapore, so we didn't bother trying to walk around it!!
We got back to the hostel and was told sky diving had been postponed until 3pm. It just doesn't look like it's going to happen in Taupo. We decided to go to the supermarket to stock up on stuff for the National Park as there aren't really any shops there. Whilst in there it started to rain so things don't look to good for the death jump!!
We got back to the hostel and got a knock on the door - are we ready to go sky diving? Lorna just turned round and said "Oh Sh*t!". We went outside and there was a limo waiting to take us to the airport! I suppose our last car journey ought to be in style! At the airport we were introduced to our tandem sky divers - Lorna was with Henk and I had Jorn. We were also shown the bright pink plane that we would be jumping out of. It seemed perfectly OK and gave us no indication that we should jump out of it!!
Lorna's original plan was to jump from just 12000 feet, and as we wanted to jump together, I would do the same. However, whilst we were waiting to get on the plane, Lorna started showing an interest in 15000 feet - I didn't give her chance to change her mind and changed our booking to 15000 feet straight away!!
So up we went in the plane. It took about 15 minutes to reach 15000 feet, but the views from the plane were awesome. The plane was only big enough for 7 people so you felt really close to the action. Must admit that I didn't feel nervous at all, strangely, and all my insides were remaining inside and not filling my underwear. I honestly thought I would need a spare parachute for my sh*t!! Lorna was also quite calm, but also very excited. I'm not sure if she was nervously excited or just psycho excited. There were three of us on the plane to jump, me, Lorna and another English guy called Dominic. Lorna seemed very pleased that I was going to jump first - not sure why!!
When we were hanging off the side of the plane looking down into oblivion, the adrenaline was pumping overtime! Then we were off - IT WAS AWESOME!!! We reached a speed of 200km per hour in just 8 seconds!! If I did pooh my pants, it would have been left behind anyway! Just couldn't understand why you would throw yourself out of a perfectly good plane!!
We were freefalling for over a minute. The views were incredible. The weather had really cleared up and we had loads of blue sky. We could see both sides of the North Island from up there. When we jumped out of the plane we got a major sensory overload as we plummeted to the ground. Our faces were like rubber as well as we fell at great speeds. We both got the Lorna slavver mode as well!!
One really good thing was the clouds that were in the sky - if you looked at them as you fell, you begin to realise how fast you are falling - crazy!
Then the ultimate moment of relief as the parachute opened! As you are freefalling you can't hear a thing because of the wind rushing by your ears, but as soon as the parachute opened everything just went silent. It was so peaceful and tranquil up there, it was amazing. I could have stayed up there for hours, but gravity disagreed. My tandem guy then decided to have a bit of fun and he sent us spinning round and round for ages - it was wicked. All this and I was still keeping my insides, inside!
I could look up and see Lorna's parachute as well about 1000 feet behind us. Then it was time to land and it was so smooth - we both stayed stood up as well. I then watched Lorna land as well. We were both absolutely buzzing afterwards, we had a major adrenaline overload! We just couldn't stop smiling.
We had paid extra to get it all on DVD as well and we got to watch this at the place after the jump. It's brilliantly made and is completely personal. There's only you on the DVD and it's filmed by the tandem guy that you jump with. Really good.
We headed back to the hostel and Lorna cooked us spag bol. We then put the sky dive DVD's on the big screen in the hostel and everyone watched them and had a good laugh.
I think the whole buzz had taken it out of us as we began to feel really shattered. We just decided to crash in the room for the night.
WHAT A DAY!! This was the main thing we wanted to do in New Zealand and it exceeded all our expectations - we want to do it again!!! Brilliant.
Comments
WOW!
Fantastic keep up the Thrills !