Taupo: Skydiving!

This is a continuation of my last post as both occurred on the same day: January 5, 2010.  I just uploaded the skydiving video, which is near the end of this post!

After the caves, we made the two hour trek to Taupo. Everywhere we drive is so pretty that I can’t believe how many people sleep on the bus! The driver first took us to Huka Falls just outside Taupo. The water is so blue that it looks fake! And wow, those are some spunky falls…the driver said the falls can fill three Olympic-sized pools in eight seconds.  Crazy!

Next stop: Taupo Tandem Skydiving!  We had to fill out forms with our next of kin’s contact info, which was a little bit foreboding.   Somehow I wasn’t nervous though!  I think it hadn’t quite hit me yet.

We ended up waiting for quite a long time since 15 of us from the bus were wanting to dive and we weren’t the only people there.  I ended up in the last group of the day, as did my friends Elaine (USA) and Rodrigo (Brazil). We saw four groups fly off and come back, so I kept joking that they had a good survival rate.  It’s weird because we could see the planes way high up and tiny, white dots falling out of them, yet I wasn’t nervous at all. 

It was probably around 6:30pm when they called us to suit up.   After the jumpsuit is on, the straps and life jacket (“anti-death device”) go on.  It was really fun wearing all of that gear! Very Top Gun.  The girl that helped us suit up (Natalie) asked us each to look really excited and wave at her camera for the video.  Elaine was the first and set up a super excited standard, so we all followed suit, which Natalie loved.

The list of jumper/instructors was listed on the wall, and I was paired with Freddy.  I found out later that he’d been diving for 27 years (the amount of time I’ve been alive!), and had done 19000 dives, of which 15000 were tandem.   He figured out that that’s equivalent to 7 weeks straight of skydiving!

While we were walking to the plane, I heard Freddy tell another instructor that he was going first…which of course meant I was going first.  Yikes! I was still excited and not scared, though.  We all crammed into the plane onto the floor (no seats!).   I was the last one to get on since I was going first.   There were 15 skydivers total: the six of us, our instructors, two cameramen (to dive with the two that paid for them), and one guy who was diving towards getting certified to dive solo.

We had to pretty much sit in our instructors’ laps because that’s where they hooked you together.  Freddy kept asking how I was and telling me what to expect.  When it was time, he’d open the door, we’d put our legs out (calves under the plane), then I’d have to turn and smile for the camera before diving out.   He said that then I had to pull my head back and after he pushed us out to arch back like a banana.  We would then do a somersault backward, which made me a little nervous.

After about 15 minutes, we were finally at 12000 feet.   It was time!   This is where I figured I’d finally freak out, but I didn’t!  It’s hard to describe what it was like.  The first part was like weightlessness, so the flip wasn’t scary.  The freefall didn’t feel like falling either just because the ground was so far away that it looked like a map. It was amazing!!  It just felt like we were flying.

When Freddy tapped my shoulder, I could let go of my straps and put out my arms.   He then pulled the ripcord, and the parachute deployed (phew!) creating a big jolt that made us go up and then drop down again.  Definitely quickened the pulse a bit! I think it was around this time that my ears started killing me.  My left one had been plugged all day, which didn’t help.  My eyes were also super watery from the wind, but whatever!   The view was incredible!   Lake Taupo (bigger than Singapore…and actually the caldera of a huge, active volcano) was below, Mt Doom was in the distance, and NZ in general is gorgeous.

Freddy steered us to the landing space and told me to pull my legs up straight in front of me.  When we were about to touch the ground, he told me to stand up, but when I tried, my knees buckled and I landed on my shins.  It didn’t hurt at all, but that meant that Freddy would land on my back. He stopped himself with his arms and legs though.  The others landed in a sitting position so I guess they weren’t told to stand.  We had to film a little “it’s great to be alive!” video at the end.   Haha.  We were all psyched, so it was easy!

Anyway, I’m so glad I did it and would do it again in a heartbeat if it weren’t so expensive.  Since then, nothing seems like it could be scary.

Well…except bungy jumping!  And ironically, I’m still afraid of heights…hmm.

Here’s the video from it.  Since I was the first to dive, I was obviously the first to land, so that gimpy landing is me. 

That night, my friends and I went out to a pub for dinner and pub night!   There was a question just for me: “Orchestras tune to which note?”  Yessss.  (Answer: A)

The next day was a relaxing one.   I had breakfast with Elaine in town, did laundry (had to hang my clothes outside because the drier wasn’t helping), went to the lake beach with my friends, and then was treated to trout caught and grilled by Belle and Andrew, my Aussie friends.