Squeezing under the big white tent at the top of The Falls Festival, trying to escape from the sun for a few minutes, Dara and I ran in to some new friends. The inevitable question came up, "So, how did you two end up here anyway?" As we started to tell our fortunate tale one of the guys, Richard, turned to us and said, "Oh no way! I heard about you girls. Would you like to go skydiving?" Dara and I looked at each other first in surprise then said to him in unison, "Yes!" with big silly grins across our faces.
For my 21st birthday a few of our friends and Dara and I went skydiving in flat, brown, landlocked, middle-of-nowhere Florida near where I went to University. It was a fun, great, perfect day but it was no Hobart. As soon as Dara and I started planning out our Van-Tastic Tasmania Adventure we knew we wanted to go skydiving but we weren't able to secure the deal until this one random encounter with a group of new friends.
Richard Timperon is the creator and owner of Skydive Tasmania since 2004 and our new friend.
A few days later Dara and I pulled up to the Skydive Tasmania office that doubles as a bike hire and were greeted by Laura whom we had also befriended at Falls and her new puppy Queso. Laura explained the risks involved and assisted us in signing our lives away and gearing up. I had the pleasure of jumping tandem with Richard the pro and Dara jumped with cheeky Brad. Since we were experienced skydivers we requested tons of spins and turns in the free-fall and we couldn't feel anything but excitement, no matter how many times Brad tried to scare us.
The plane ride up was almost as good as the jump. It was so cool to see the city we had fallen in love with from the sky. We could point out all of our favorite spots under the perfectly blue clear sky.
Since this was my fifth tandem jump, Richard had me try something a little different on the way out. When we reached the desired altitude of 10,000 feet; instead of leaving the plane with my legs back he had me tuck my legs up in to my chest with my arms crossed to get those spins I wanted. We tumbled through the air for 30 seconds of free-fall which I can always only describe as the most fun, crazy rollercoaster ride you can imagine (only better than whatever you are imagining) before the first, small parachute comes out. At that point we spread our wings and flew straight and fast towards the beautiful Hobart for another 30 seconds. When the big parachute opened our harness moved us seemlessly in to a seated position as the air popped us up and slowed us down for a nice, easy remaining ride down. Richard let me help steer the parachute and us around in a few fun circles before he had to aim for the runway.
Laura, the puppy and the rest of the Skydive Tasmania crew were waiting for us as we came in for a perfect landing.
