Advertisement
Published: March 29th 2007
Seriously Pete, is this really a great idea?
It would be very rude to repeat what she was saying at this point."No Pete, I'm not going to skydive..."
With the disappointment of 2 cancelled heli-hikes fresh in their minds Pete and Ang headed to Queenstown in search of another memorable activity. I’m not doing a skydive Ang stated as Pete dragged her into the adrenalin-junkie shop. Therefore Pete booked onto the 9,000ft skydive on his own with the intention of upgrading to 15,000ft on the day. Subtly enquiring how many places they had left on the trip, we found out there was only one more available space. Destiny please meet Angela, Angela meet destiny. Urgh/woohoo (?), the trip was booked for 9.30am the next morning.
It was a slightly restless night’s sleep for Angela who, by morning, was definitely regretting her decision and stated she would not be jumping from higher than 9,000ft. Pete had not a worry in the world - at this point.
We arrived at the shop, watched a dvd and heard a little talk about what was about to happen to us. After a little cajoling and reverse psychology from Pete, Ang decided it made some sort of good sadistic sense to jump from 12,000ft as 15 seconds freefall just isn’t enough. Afterall,
if a 96 year old and
4 year old have both done a skydive with this company...
Out to the airfield/skydive base and we watched people shooting from the sky towards us whilst we waited for our turn. As we were waiting we chatted to a couple of very good salesmen and, before she realised, Ang was also signed up to the 15,000ft skydive complete with oxygen-assisted flight.
After a quick briefing we were crammed into the plane in our jump suits and very tight harnesses. Pete was lucky to get the emergency exit seat and had a great view straight down as we flew up. He was quite pleased he got this spot as if Ang had sat there she might have been back to the 9,000ft jump instead. Ang was content; having a parachute strapped to your back has to make it a pretty safe flight.
As the altimeters crept over 12,000ft we were passed oxygen masks as once planes get up this high it is a legal requirement. Before we knew it we had reached 15,000ft, the door opened, the red light turned to green and we were good to go…
Ang watched
Pete slide to the edge of the plane, hang his feet out the door, go very pale and then disappear. Ang swears the plane rose another few hundred feet after unloading this bulk cargo. With her eyes tight shut, Ang edged near the door and soon was plunging to the ground as well.
The first 3 seconds were the most terrifying as we tumbled before gaining some kind of balance and worked out which way was up and down. Before we went up we were told to think of poses to pull in the air whilst dropping (did we mention, falling at 200km/hr within 12 seconds). Not sure how much thinking capacity the instructors thought we would have during freefall - it lasted 60 seconds but felt like no time at all. After falling nearly 3 and a half kilometres our instructors pulled the cord and we slowed to float down to the ground with a few twisting spirals to keep our heart rates up.
Landings were very smooth (Pete "glided in to a seating position" - basically landed on his backside).
We still have those fixed grins on our faces and haven't stopped talking about it
all day. Definitely an experience we would recommend - worth getting over terrible nerves for.
Advertisement
Tot: 0.182s; Tpl: 0.012s; cc: 14; qc: 86; dbt: 0.0652s; 1; m:domysql w:travelblog (10.17.0.13); sld: 1;
; mem: 1.2mb
Dennis Barlow
non-member comment
Aaargh
I'm sitting here after returning from NZ, suffering from jet lag, and I'm viewing this blog for the first time. My hands are sweating! Thank God I didn't stay a day longer!