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Published: February 17th 2008
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Well, it wasn't quite terror, but the nerves do jangle when you look out the plane door and see the clouds a great distance below. You are literally hurtling towards your messy death until that cord is pulled, releasing your lifeline. Something wrong with the cord? It means people will be talking about you in the past tense. It's also pretty chilly up there.
The actual jump itself was an absolute rush though. We booked the jump on the Saturday to go on Sunday morning (today) first thing which turned out to be a 5:30am rise. Thanks to Karen, we had a birthday gift voucher that covered my jump and then some, so that took a lot of financial strain off it, although we did opt to get the DVD/Photo package which was worth it. Despite the wide angle lens distortion and some unflattering pictures as Emma found out when her oversized jump suit filled with air.
After the bus picked us up on William Street, it was almost an hour to the actual drop zone on the minibus. An English guy on it started talking to us who informed us that this was his 19th dive or something
and he was a solo fly boy. We were doing ours on a tandem which is the general starting point for first timers, meaning we didn't have to worry about landing positioning or opening the chute, although we did get to control it for a bit. The guy on the bus was saying how "the fear" never totally dissipates although I think he may have been trying to reassure us.
As we got to the drop zone, I had to get weighed and I discovered I was 0.7kgs over the recommended weight which meant a small surcharge and a bit of a fright, as another few kilos and I wouldn't have been able to do it. Better get dieting I suppose. Because there was a plane about to go up, they hurried us on to it once we got into our jumpsuits and equipment so there wasn't much time to ponder. Soon we were sitting on the plane and flying high.
It was strangely relaxing on the plane just gazing down at the clouds and the prospect of it didn't seem scary at all. In fact, I felt as calm as I had ever been and was just
raring to go. Only when the plane door opened (no one gets sucked out like in the films) was when the reality of it set in, but even then it was more excited anticipation than anything else. The freefall was my favourite part as the speed felt amazing with the adrenaline pumping high, despite me not managing to assume the completely correct posture. Going through the clouds was cold and damp, but a surreal pleasure and that was when the chute was opened.
The chute opening hurt me in fairly delicate areas. Maybe because I'm a bit heavier, but I felt the force of the equipment strangling my nether regions and felt it for the rest of the way down. It was a very small inconvenience though as the views were, literally, breathtaking. The rest of the way down was so still and quiet and the feeling was unreal. Steering and doing a spiral was fun and I gave a wave to Emma as I noticed her. Up there though, it's hard to take account of the other jumpers as you spread out pretty quickly. Landing was the only technical part as I had to make sure I lifted
my legs and feet right up out of the way to avoid breakage, but that was as straightforward as it sounds. Afterwards, we were both left standing back on the earth with huge cheesers on our faces. Well worth it and an experience neither of us will be forgetting anytime soon and one that we would really like to again. Pretty much one of the best experiences we've ever had and would strongly urge anyone else to do it when they get a chance.
The rest of our activities since the last entry sound a lot more mundane in comparison. We've both been working away during the week, with my job just finishing up on Friday there. On Friday afternoon, I was frantically searching for new employment but nothing seemed to be materialising. On the 11th hour, I started badgering a guy at Adecco and ended up getting a debt collection job. Crap? Yes, but also a job for another month. To rub it in though, Toshiba offered me another week's work just as I was walking out the door. Great communication from my manager there. Emma is still working at the same office, however her boss is a
classic example of middle management gone wrong. She is also quite disgusted by the level of racism within some of the people that she works with and has met so far in Australia.
Last weekend we hit the Australian Museum, which was pretty insightful. Some things more so than others and the kind clerk on the door let us in for students, despite our fake Thailand IDs not acceptable. The photo exhibitions were pretty amazing and made us want to go out and buy a fancy SLR camera. A surprising hit was the ape exhibition too, although quite depressing as it was real-life ape troubled-past stories. Apes are not actually human, despite people seemingly wanting to train them to brush their teeth.
Aside from that, the weather wasn't too great so our Blue Mountains tour has been postponed as well as a couple of bushwalks we have planned. We'll update as they happen. We visited the pub a couple of times as well as a few outings to the cinema. One of the cinema outings was to see the unfortunately titled "There Will Be Blood". The title seemed to bring in troops of morons who obviously expected a
horror/comedy, not realising it was more or less a 3 hour character study of an oil tycoon (Daniel Day-Lewis acting masterclass) and capitalism. The people behind us were notable twats who were talking right from the start and forcing laughs out to begin with when the main character came up from the well with oil on his face (side splitting). They soon became bored and restless and began asking what the moral of the story was at one point. Afterwards, the same guys came out saying it was the worst film they had ever seen and they had only called it that to get people to see it. Only idiots going to see something purely based on a title surely? It was a really good film though, but a bit unsettling.
Anyway, we're still buzzing from our skydive which will probably last all day. Start the debt collecting job tomorrow though, so it's back down to earth again with a crash come the morning.
(More pictures on Page 2, we tried to upload one of the videos but it takes too long...)
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