Red sky at night, shepherd's delight. The saying that finalised my decision to on the spur of the moment book my skydive in Wanaka. I had two days off work ahead of me and upon seeing the red sky knew it was going to be nice weather the next day (Screw you weather forecast, old sayings win!)So woke up in the morning, booked a room in the Purple Cow Hostel in Wanaka and set off hitch hiking. Turns out my lucky nature transfers to hitching as both there AND back I only need to thumb a lift once. Which is rare for 2 hour journeys!
Spent a bit of time in Wanaka beforehand, beautiful town with an incredible view across a lake onto the mountains. Very like Queenstown but less commercial! Then headed to the airport for the big event! You get kitted out in a red jumpsuit etc and meet your instructor. Mine was called Eric and my cameraman David (An absolute joker who pretended to be on the phone to me before introducing himself... HA... not.) You then hop into the plane, a very flimsy plastic shutter is closed and you take off.
Looking around about 5 minutes into the flight I was like, ah we must be nearly there! Look at that view! Upon which I was shown an altitude metre telling me no, we were at 4000 feet. Still another 11,000 to go. I began to question my decision to go for the highest option. I also made the schoolboy error of turning to my instructer and saying "You have such a beautiful country! It's amazing!" Which he read as me feeling 'an unnatural sense of well being'.. one of the many symptoms of hypoxia, otherwise known as the beginnings of brain death from lack of oxygen. I was quickly handed an oxygen mask and proceeded to become euphoric from the delights of pure oxygen. Fantastic.
Then you come to the moment you shuffle forwards and are hung out of the plane by your instructor. When you smile, this is the signal you are ready and he will push off. This is not really a fair signal considering your face is being blasted by 200mph winds. Your cheeks naturally form a whopping great grin. Strangely I wasn't that scared, even on the brink.. it was surreal really. The view was better than anything I have ever seen and the stomach drop lasted a fraction of a second before my body decided I was beyond saving and stopped warning me I was falling. The free fall seemed to go on forever! It was incredible, when the parachute eventually opened out (massively cutting into your groine -_-) you then gradually descend appreciating the view and chatting with the instructor doing a few twirls to pick up speed. Landing was a piece of cake, you just stood up!
It was an amazing experience I thoroughly reccommend to all! It's not as scary as it seems once you're up there and the rush is unbelievable! After chatting with Eric I found out that to be qualified to do this professionally you have to do 1000 jumps. You can get a commercial pilots licence for less money than that would cost!! Crazy.
Photo's will accompany this post shortly!
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