Waking up this morning, the first thing I did was take a look at the sky, which was cloud free and a beautiful shade of blue! Yes! The receptionist at the hostel called NZ Skydiving for me to check that we were on, and the news was good! I chucked breakfast down my neck and got my kit ready... finally I was going to do this.
The pickup was on time and I was soon sat on the quietest minibus I've ever been on! It was morning, but really, there was just an eery silence... lol! The drive to the airstrip was forty minutes and we stopped at one point with a great view across the lake to the area where we would be taking off from, and touching down into! The day was perfect as far as I was concerned, no wind to speak of and we were going to be treated to stunning views!
The 'airstrip' is a flat(ish) grassy field with a little hut off to one side. Thats it. The guys on site are highly professional of course and the buzz around the place is one of fun and excitment. Everyone from the bus was now slowly waking up. I got chatting to a sound German fella called Marius, an American chap who's name I forget now (made a big impression clearly) and a young English lad named Chris who had an arm in a cast after breaking it in a quad biking accident! Shortly after we arrived a couple of Dutch girls arrived too, who really brightened the place up with their infectious perma-smiles and endless nervous giggling. We were shown a DVD presnetation of how the day would work and then had to sign our lives away with the standard NZ 'this is dangerous, its your own bloody fault if you die' form. We were then helped into our fetching jumpsuits and fitted with a harness. I opted for the full photo and movie package, so was introdcued to Thiago, a rather wild looking Italian fella who does the filming and photography, and Deano, a huge scruffy haired fella who I was going to be strapped to for the fall. He was now my new bestestestest mate, and I listened very carefully to everything he said. I was going up in the second load with Chris, and we watched as the first load was crammed into the Cessna and trundled away to take off from the field. I was pretty excited at this point, I was convinced I was going to love it and had no nerves to speak of. The lad going up with me was a different kettle of fish, holding his head in his hands at various intervals and nervously asking questions as we watched the others falling from the plane fifteen minutes after take off, right over our heads. The little dots in the sky had suddenly given us the scale... lol! The camera men have the best job here in my opinion, they jump with a sports chute and once the freefall has been done and the tandem chute is out, they have to speed down to earth as fast as possible to be in position on the landing field to film their customer coming in to land and greet them! These guys looked very cool, spinning very fast to earth and coming in at speed to land right in front of us! The landings were nice and smooth for those that went before us, with the tandem masters opting for a slide in on the backsides. The whoops and cheers from the two jumpers signalled the thrill of the ride, and Chris and I were donning the gloves and hats ready to board...
The plane is obviously build for jumping out of, so the big sliding door comes back and there are limited seats inside. Chris and his jump master (who by the way has performed over 20,000 skydives!!!) got in first and sat against the fixed side of the plane, facing the back. Then the two photographers got in at the back, and lastly I sat in between the legs of Deano, next to the opening door, facing the back. The flight up was quite cool, as is any small plane flight if you're into that kind of thing, and Thiago only took a few snaps and pieces of film, which was good as too much would have annoyed me, I was trying to enjoy it and didn't want to be bothered with thinking about a camera pointing at me. He also took some shots out of the plane at various points which look great on the DVD. The views up here were stunning as you'd expect, we could see the entire alpine mountain ranges all around the lake and even as far as the Tasman sea on the west coast! As we got to around 8,000ft Deano pointed a few sights of interest out to me (which I can't really remember now, lol) and we basically waited for the 15,000ft mark. As we neared the magic number Deano reminded me of the important instructions to exit the plane, I have to swing my legs around out of the door, and hang out of the plane while he sits on the step. I have to bend my legs back up behind me, cross my arms over my chest, put my head back and stay like that til he taps me on the shoulder once were falling the right way up! And so the door was opened! Most people I spoke to about this said that this is the point as which the majority of folk freak out, as generally speaking doors on planes don't open when you're in flight! Contrary to popular film depictions, when the door does open, nothing gets sucked out of there, apart from a small swirl of air. As far as I was concerned, in order to jump out of a plane, the door must be open, so this held no fear for me, in fact I quite enjoyed the fact that I was sitting on the edge of the door at 15,000ft, you don't get to do that very often now do you!! Thiago climbed out first, and hung onto the little bar behind the door ready to film the whole jump for me. I swung my legs out over the edge, took a good old look down (sweeeeet view!) shuffled forwards and was now hanging out of the plane! I tucked my legs up, stuck a thumb up to the camera, crossed my arms on my chest and shouted "here we go" to no one in particular and Deano rocked back and forward twice and out we went! [At this point on the DVD I can hear the by now petrified Chris shout some expletives, as all he sees is me disappear in a flash out of the plane! Lol]
Lately I've been getting into the sensation of 'falling'. It is highly addictive and is something I'd like to explore further in the future. This kind of falling though, is something else! The noise is tremendous, so much so that I could have screamed at the top of my lungs and Deano (on my back) would not have heard me. We were falling at approximately 120mph. When you first exit the plane, it is basically a tumble. The reason I had to pull the shape I did was so that Deano can put us the right way up with some subtle movements and deploy the first part of the parachute which helps keep us up the correct way, like a rudder I guess! Once this was done, Deano tapped me on the shoulders and I put my arms out wide and looked up to see Thiago falling right in front of us! The sensation is awesome. The wind on the face is funny too, although not as funny as the photos it produced of my baggy face flapping around all over the place! Having Thiago right in front of us was awesome too, as I could see the little movements he was making to stay perfectly positioned with us, that guy is good at what he does (not to mention the lad on my back of course!). It really enhanced my experience of the skydive to have someone else that close by through the freefall. The view from here, is out of this world. Well, it is actually 'of this world', so much of which I have never seen at one time before with my own two eyes!! I remembered Deano telling me to keep my head up and look at Thiago, otherwise the DVD would be of the top of my head, but I had to have a good look around me, which I did. The Tasman sea to one side, all the way over beyond the west coast of New Zealand, and the huge mountain ranges inland all around us, surrounding the many enormous lakes. Wonderful stuff and worth every penny and every second! There were moments during the freefall where I was merrily woohoo-ing to myself, and moments where I wore a ridiculous smile on my face, which by the way means your mouth fills up with air in a quality comedy stylie! Deano was checking his altimeter every few seconds and I felt him reach back for the cord and saw Thiago give him a knowing thumbs up... the chute was being deployed and the 10,000ft, 50 second freefall was over!
The brakes came on in a BIG way when the chute came out, and it wasn't even fully open! I let out possibly the biggest Whooooaaa shout of my life, whilst simultaneously receiving the biggest wedgie of my life! [Nothing actually got squashed, but the 'stop' into the harness was savage, and the first thing I thought of when I saw the pictures was a wedgie, you'll see what I mean when you see them, lol] I could feel Deano wrestling a bit with the canopy, so it obviously needed a bit of help opening properly, but we were soon floating along in almost complete silence. The contrast is huge from the freefall! Now you have time to take in the view, although we could no longer see over the top of the mountains around the lake, and you can talk to each other and really relax. Deano remarked as this point that my shape was perfect for the exit and freefall and that was why we had such an easy and smooth fall... ummm, thanks?! Like I knew much about it! I'll take the plaudits though... lol. We discussed the landing and Deano released the bottom clips on the harness which would enable me to swing my legs up more easily for the touch down. Chris and his instructor were doing some fast spins in front of us and Deano remarked that they were probably coming alongside to fly next to us, which they duly did, with the other instructor bringing his chute close enough that they touched canopies! This was obviously quite amusing for them, but poor Chris still had his arms clasped tightly to his chest!! We did some cool swooping turns and got in position to land and coming in I could see Thiago running out on to the landing strip with his camera. My thumbs instantly came out when we got close enough (seriously, they have a mind of their own in these situations!) and as we slid in past Thiago he was woohoo-ing louder than me the nutter! Deano unclipped my harness and my feet were back on the ground. Handshakes and hugs all round and we were whisked back over to the side and helped out of the harnesses. Chris by this point was much happier, although he did enjoy the experience. He had to sit down though, as his legs had given up! The next guys were getting ready to go and were looking encouraged by our landings and having spoken to the first jumpers of the day.
I ended up buying a long sleeved tshirt with the logo on, along with the DVD and the full set of digital photos, which all turned out pretty good! This experience will live with me forever more, and I really want to do it again! Before I'd even got here I'd already priced up taking the accelerated freefall training course here in New Zealand, but I think with the budgetary issues I now face, I'll have to shelve that plan for now. I *might* do it in South Africa, should the funds allow it, as it is much cheaper again there. Failing that it might have to be something I either forget about or come back to when I have enough cash to throw at it... it is an expensive hobby! Whilst I was getting my DVD's etc, I got chatting to the girl working there who it turns out is from Cheltenham (just up the road from my home town). Such a small world, even though it looks massive from 15,000ft... ;-)
After a shower and small lunch back at the hostel I took a walk into town (to book onto the HUGE Nevis bungy for tomorrow) and bumped into the Kiwi girl I'd been chatting too early sunday morning and ended up spending the rest of the afternoon/early evening in her fine company (Steve Davis need ask no questions ;-)). Top off the day with a world famous burger from Fergburger in the highstreet (seriously, possibly the best burger on the planet!) and today has to mount up as the single most enjoyable day of the whole trip thus far. Unfortunately it will be hard to top it... doh! I tucked into a few dark ales back at the hostel before retiring hoping for some flying dreams! [Flying dreams were a very frequent thing for me in my youth, they were always amazing. Sadly I have them extremely rarely these days, maybe once every few years if I'm lucky. I'm hoping that todays activity might help get those going again! ;-)]
Pictures of me 'flying' are over on facebook!! Check out the flapping cheeks mind! Lol ;-)(If you want to see my descriptions and any comments, you'll need to sign in)
