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“King of adrenalin rushes! 15,000 feet, 1 minute freefall! WOW!” |
Wow - had a super awesome time in Wanaka - maybe it was the beautiful scenery, or maybe it was my adrenalin pumping, throw myself out of an airplane skydive. But, regardless - I had a wicked, brief stay here.
I had never even thought I would skydive in New Zealand when I arrived a week before. I had always been intrigued by it but had never flat out made the commitment to jumping. It takes guts and I wasn't sure if I had them. But, then weird things happen when you travel and when the sheet got passed around on our tour bus to sign up for skydiving I wrote my name down. I was originally supposed to skydive over the Franz Joseph glacier at 12,000 feet - but the plane needed servicing so we got postponed to Wanaka. I figured we should have just all went up in the broken plane anyway as we were already suited up with parachutes and were already jumping out - perhaps a little fire or engine failure would make it a little more exciting?!
So, we got moved to Wanaka for the following day - and I didn't know anything about it and I had already got psyched up for the glacier jump - but turns out Wanaka is scenic as well. They are mountains, lakes, and rocky hills. Ok - time to get ready again. Nope it's a no go for round two as apparently it was too windy. It was the most beautiful day too so I was disappointed. Plan was the following morning at the crack of dawn. Third time's the charm right? And, it was!
We were good to go. There were about 15 people jumping in Wanaka from our bus. Which was pretty nuts. But, lots of people come to NZ to do crazy things, plus Wanaka is one of the few places you can jump from 15,000 feet! Oh boy. I decided to 'Go Big, or Go Home'. So, we watched a safety video, signed our lives away with a waiver, and got into our jump suits. Because I was so excited I raced in completing my form which meant I as going to be in the first group that jumped. And, surprisingly that didn't scare me.
I met the man I would trust with my life as I was obviously jumping tandem with someone else taking the grunt of the responsibility. I was pretty much there for the ride.
There were 3 of us jumping in the first group. Plus, the 3 instructors, and 3 cameramen and a pilot. As how could you throw yourself out of a plane and not capture those thrilling moments on film and video. We headed up in the plane. I was remarkably calm and just distracted myself with the scenery and asking lots of question with what we could see. We could see 150 km in each direction. Wow. So, when we reached our jumping height it really sunk in that we weren't going down via plane. The other 2 people looked really nervous and I was the last of the 3 to jump. Watching the other 2 go was interesting as they literally disappeared in milliseconds, plus the small plane would lift up from the weight loss. Uh oh! D-day was approaching. The only time I got nervous was the 30 seconds that we had to slide to the open door of the plane and then I knew it was for real. I have watched the video of the jump and it is priceless and some of the first photos are really good as well - I look like I am about to die. But, after you tumble out of the plane and do a small flip in the air you are good to go. And, you are a bit out of it as it doesn't feel like you are falling at 200 km/hour it just feels like the wind is rushing really fast. And, you are trying to take in the scenery, but at the same time enjoy the rush of adrenalin. We fell out in the sky for 1 minute and fell 11,000 feet! Wow. It sure went by quick. Then the parachute popped up and we floated to the ground.
The experience was amazing. And, I swear if you can overcome the mental fear of it - do it. It's physically not scary - and this is coming from someone who has only been on one rollercoaster in her life. It was a blast. And, as soon as you get down you want to go immediately back up again.
previous travel blog entry
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