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Published: April 17th 2012
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After a great week in Auckland we decided to book ourselves onto a bus to travel 3 hours North of Auckland to the bay of islands which is a collection of over 100 different sized islands and bays. We had also bought a discounted coupon online (similar to groupon) that entitled us to a half price 16,000ft skydive at the Sky Dive Zone centre in the bay of islands.
We caught the bus on the morning of Tuesday 10th to Paihia, when we arrived the weather was great and we spent the afternoon exploring the town and some of the coastline. Our skydive was booked for the next day but when we woke up the weather wasn't great and it only got worse throughout the day, we had to reschedule for the day after (Thursday 12th). Again the weather was great and we spent a very frustrating day at the skydive centre waiting for the clouds to clear, but unfortunately they never did and our bus back to Auckland was at 5pm that evening. We decided to reschedule for saturday (14th) morning as Penny had kindly offered us the use of her car so we could drive back up at
the weekend and the weather was forecast to be much better.
So we returned to Auckland on Thursday night and spend friday the 13th exploring Auckland some more and we visited the amazing Auckland museum with Oliver. In the evening we caught the train to Eden Park which recently hosted the Rugby World Cup final in October 2011 which NZ won, to see the Auckland Blues rugby team play the Durban Sharks from South Africa. Unfortunately the blues lost 29-23 but it was a great game with many world cup winning all blacks in the squad.
So as to be first in the queue for our skydive on saturday morning we needed to arrive at the centre in the bay of islands at 7:30am, meaning we had to be on the road from Auckland at 4:30am. We arrived bang on time but again the clouds were low and heavy and the needed breaks of blue sky we needed to do the jump were few and far between, things looked up after a few hours of waiting at around 10am when the clouds seemed to subside, we quickly got changed into our jump suites and harnesses, however, as soon
as the plane was being started the clouds had set in again. We then had another frustrating 2 hour wait with the realisation setting in that we may have to stay overnight again to do maybe do the jump on sunday. However, very quickly some blue sky and sunshine on the horizon was spotted and before we knew it we were in the plan and making the 20minute climb up to 16,000ft, as we slowly climbed the realisation of what we were about to do slowly set in, along with the nerves!
Jess was first out of the plane and for me it was the strangest feeling in the world seeing a loved one fall out of a plane at such a height but as soon as that had happened I was out as well, we free fell for over a minute at terminal velocity of around 125mph to 5,000ft when the parachute was deployed and we parachuted the remaining distance which took around 4minutes.
All in all the experience was totally out of this world, so many cliches could be used to describe it but I don't think anything I could fathem would or could truly do
the feeling justice, just indescribable. We're both undecided whether we would do it again but i'm sure that the more you do it the more you will enjoy it, as the first time you are so concerned for your saftey that it must be difficult to really relax (within reason) and enjoy it. The views were amazing but we both felt rather fragile afterwards, we are very pleased we paid a bit extra for photo and dvd documentation of the experience (the instructors we jumped with had a still and video camera attached to one of their wrists and we're really pleased with the results), even watching it back that evening I felt my stomach flip, but it was definitely an amazing experience and we are so pleased we did it and I'm very proud of Jess as she was so brave and took it all in her stride.
Tomorrow we are beginning our bus tour on the kiwi experience and leaving auckland to travel to the hot water beaches on the east coast, so today we are enjoying our last taste of home comforts for a while and packing.We've loved our time in auckland and this 2 weeks
has gone so quickly, so much thanks to Noel, Penny, Oliver, Archie and Jasper for their hospitality, genorosity and kindness for making us feel so at home and looking after us!
Enjoy the photos of us looking so silly whilst flying through the air! (Don't forget to check the ones at the bottom of the page!)
Will be in touch soon, hope everyone is ok at home.
Lots of love, Jess and Josh xxxxxxx
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