Cold fear at 15,000 feet.

No sooner had we dried off from the white water rafting, and we were on the way to Taupo. Apparantly Taupo is one of the sky diving capital of the world, due to the good weather etc. Tim had been mentioning sky diving before we even left London, but I had been trying to block this out of my mind, as I was hoping that he was in fact joking. Unfortunately we had met a whole raft of people in Rotorua who had foolishly jumped out of planes in Taupo and thought it was the best thing ever - this was not helping my cause! Taupo was beautiful in the sunshine, so we laid by the lake for a while, and enjoyed. The next morning, we booked our skydiving - yes I was temporairly insane! I knew that if I didn't do it I would regret it, so that was that! It seemed a little weird to complete a next of kin form when we were picked up.

When we got to the airport office, there was a choice of 12,000 feet or 15,000 feet, so of course we ended up going for 15,000 (Tim reckoned 12,000 feet was for wimps!). The whole experience was to be captured on DVD and video for proof to all. After getting our gear on, we met our Tandem Masters (i.e strangers that we were going to be attached to.) Mine was a very nice man called JK, who had done over 19,000 jumps, won some medals and been doing it for 20 years, so I was pretty pleased with this. I think he thought I was crazy when my first question was did he have a spare parachute in the bag.

(Tim takes over the typing)..

So into the plane we went, basically two benches in the back of a relatively small light aircraft. We were a little bit like sardines. The view of Lake Taupo from the aircraft was amazing as we climbed and climbed. At 12,000 feet, the door opened to let the wimps out - this was very strange as I knew we would be up next. By now, my nerves were starting to jangle a little even though sky diving is something I've always wanted to do.

Em - please exit the plane!

Tim - please exit the plane

So, we get to our altitude and Alan (my tandem master) and I slide forward towards the open door - stomach in mouth time!! The first couple of seconds of freefall are very uncontrolled and then you can put your arms our so that you are falling with your legs slightedly bent. I would swear here but the feeling was absolutely amazing, like nothing I've ever done before. I was "wooing" all the way down. The guy filming us came to us in mid-air and shook my hand.

Tim freefall

Tim - yeeeee haaaaaa

Em in freefall!

Then Alan opened the canopy and we serenely parashuted back to terra firma. Alan let me control the parashute for a while which was really cool. Once we had landed, I immediately looked for Emma who was just coming into land, I run over and hugged both her and JK. What an adrenaline rush - both of us felt on a high all day and I was up for doing it again. Even Alan said I should sign up for the skydiving course.

Tim - freefall

What a truly AWESOME experience, definately want to do it again!!

Taupo - TTS plane

Taupo sunset - its nice, I like!

Cold fear at 15,000 feet.

Taupo, New Zealand