Taupo

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6.11.2011

Off to Taupo today pronounced 'toe-paw', where I had planned to do a sky dive! We stopped off at some bubbling mud pit and a red wood forewst for a walk on the way. After a long think Sophie decidede to join me at doing a skydive. I think she didn't want me doing it on my own and missing out. The weather was on and off so we had to waot around for a couple of hours till it cleared, which built up the suspense a little. Sophie was nervous and she wasn't hiding it. Half way through watching a film and we got the call to get our jumpsuits on and get ready. We were fitted with our harnesses, goggles and helmets by our instructers, and the people we were jumping tandem with. Sophie's instructer must have smelt the fear and was winding her up big time. All the way up in the small pink plane he was talking to her winding her up even more! There was 12 of us squeezed tightly into the plane. We got upto 6,000ft and had to come back down again as the clouds were rolling in and your not aloud to jump throgh thick cloud you have to be able to see the ground from the plane. We waited for about another hour on the groung until we got another call. This time it was clear and the jump would go ahead. Not going to lie I was a little bit nervous. Sophie was in first so she would be last out and I was infront of her. Sophies guy was telling her that he had a dodgy heart, that it was his 3rd jump and her harness was too big for her! I don't think it was helping her nerves. We got to 15,000ft and the door swung open one by one people were jumping out. You didn't have much time to think about it, we shuffled to the edge and next thing you were free falling from 15,000ft! We were free falling for 60 seconds which got us just beneath the clouds and the parachute was pulled. The first 10 seconds your sh*#$ing yourself but after that I was loving it, travelling so fast and just falling. When the parachute wass pulled we were falling for about 5 minutes more enjoying the view of the lake and Mount Doom off Lord of the Rings. I had a look up to see if Sophie had made it and if she was safe which she was, I was suprised I couldn't here her screams. We both really enjoyed it and glad we did it.

We got back to the hostel and looked for Jess, Lizzy, Em, and Amy (Sophie's uni mates) and found them. Can't beat a good reunion. They had a good catch up over a few drinks and a free BBQ in the pub nextdoor. We found out that they will be joining our bus in the next few days when we get to Wellington as they stay an extra night there. I won a $70 bar tab at killer pool so that helped us celebrate the sky dive and meeting up with the girls M

7.11.2011

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