Chris and Andrea's Travel Blog: Skydiving

Part two of making gravity my own personal lap dog was ski diving. I was set up and ready to go at 9:30am, and I wanted the biggest jump, the 15,000ft monster. It's a tandem skydive, so you have a partner who knows what the hell they are doing strapped to you, so you're just along for the ride. These guys do about 15 jumps a day and average about 6,000 jumps each for experience. Are you comforted? I was...a bit.

So we drove over to the airfield and waited, and waited, and waited, as we saw dozens of other people jumping ahead of me. My time was pushed back because the bad weather from the past few days meant that these people got higher priority than me for jumping. While this irked me pretty severely, it's fair, in a way, but by 1pm the wind was just too gusty and they canceled the remaining jumps, which meant I was left high and dry. Not feeling particularly happy about how I was treated, we got the full refund and decided to try again in nearby Wanaka (where we were staying for 2 days), which is very much like Queenstown for scenery but is much less touristy and actually much nicer.

I woke up the next morning and the weather was absolutely amazing. Clear, blue skies as far as you can see. We drove to the airfield, and we (me and the other people jumping) were quickly whisked into the training booth, dressed up, introduced to our jump partners and cameraman and before you knew it we were being seated backwards into a tiny orange plane. I had completely forgotten to ask the guys what colour my shoot was so Andrea could find me in the sky, but she is very observant and knew what colours my jump partner was wearing, so she picked me out very easily. Up and up we went, flying over the valley between Lake Wanaka and Lake Hawea, and the sights were incredible. The flight alone was worth the price of admission. I looked out and saw we were about at mountain level and asked my flight partner how high we were. Only 5,000 feet? Yikes. So we climbed and climbed, making a giant circle over and over again in the sky, and my partner put my oxygen mask over my face (for the altitude, you see) and I looked back down and all of those massive mountains now looked very tiny, almost indistinguishable from the valley floor. He cinched up the harness so were basically one person, and we manoevered to the edge of the door and I dangled my feet out of the plane, bent backwards onto the fuselage. The cameraman, who is, by definition, insane, hangs on the edge with his hands and takes pictures with his teeth. I thought I was pretty badass for skydiving. This guy has badass listed under personal attributes, work experience, education and hobbies on his resume. He gives the thumbs up, I tilt my head back and yell, “Let's go!” and we are launched out of the plane, falling towards the Earth. The feeling is very much like bungeeing and I yelled, in a very manly way, as you can remember from my bungee experience, and we quickly accelerate to terminal velocity, 200kph. The wind was fierce, the air was cold, and thin, the rush was massive, and I was having the time of my life. 60 seconds of freefall just doesn't seem like long enough, even though I'm gasping for air, my mouth dry from the wind and from smiling, and then we release the shoot and we are caught by the wind. I'm disappointed at first, but the feeling of floating to the ground from 4,000ft in a parachute, after falling from 15,000ft at 200kph is like being held in your mother's arms. This great ride last for about five more minutes, and then you fall very peacefully to the ground. I was released from the shoot, gave Andrea the thumbs up, and then got on my knees and kissed the ground. Twice. I stumbled, wobbly kneed over to Andrea, as the oxygen deprivation was finally hitting me, and I was very happy. The rush was incredible, the setting was unbeatable, and the experience was unforgettable. But I think we're doing with the gravity extreme sports, and I'll be keeping my feet on the ground for the foreseeable future.