Francesca and Henk-Jan's Backpacking Trip!
Monday, July 13, 2009
SKYDIVING!!
Hihi everyone! Francesca here.
AND-- Oh… my… GOD! I went skydiving today!! But first, I’m going to recap what happened since we last posted. So currently we are in Taupo, one of the skydiving capitals of the world. After making some breakfast (I’m getting so sick of bread and cheese!) Henk and I took a short walk to a neat little area filled with a bunch of mini mud pools, similar to the larger ones we had seen at Wai-O-Tapu, except these were scattered throughout a large playground/park. We stopped for a few minutes to act like little kids on the swing sets, and then explored the pools until it was time to get ready for our pick-up.
We left Rotorua around noon, jumping on the next available Stray bus. And who happened to be our driver? It was Nat again, our last-minute Stray driver from a few days before. We noticed our bus was significantly bigger than the previous ones we had been on – and for good reason, there were almost 20 travelers on this bus! We tossed our stuff in the back (OK, Henk did while I scoped out the best possible bus seats left!) and shortly after met all of our new companions.
Our main stops for the day:
While Henk and I preferred to stay dry, some of our bus companions took the opportunity to swim in a hot-water river, hot because of the lava flowing under the ground beneath the water. We walked around and watched as the other travelers tossed themselves into the water, making sure we got a good look at the sign posted next to the river.
Posted by New Zealand’s Department of Conservation, the sign read: DANGER! Do not put head in water—amoebic meningitis is fatal and caused by water entering the nasal passages.
Sounds yummy! Amoebic meningitis is not exactly one of the “must-do” experiences I have on my list for New Zealand… I was pretty happy with the decision we made to not get in the water this time.
Another stop was Huka Falls. An awesomely dangerous-looking canal and waterfall, Huka Falls resembles something greater than the toughest rapids you might take on in any white-water rafting trip. Taking millions of years to even form, the falls was created by a river cutting a deep narrow channel into a layer of soft mudstone and pumice that had been formed by the ancient lake in the area previously. As the river eroded further, the channel became increasingly steeper, thus increasing the intense rapids of the water flowing down the falls.
Furthermore, the color of the water was this awesomely bright shade of light/medium blue. We learned that this color was due to the very clear water reflecting blue light, and that the air bubbles in the water intensify the blue color. To give you an idea about the intensity of the falls (as it is a bit difficult to imagine from just pictures), the volume of water passing over the falls varies between 32 and 270 cubic meters per second; the height of the falls fluctuates between 7 and 9.5 meters depending on volume.
Done at Huka falls, we left to take on an even bigger fall for the day: skydiving was scheduled for around 4 pm that afternoon. However, due to the excess wind, by the time we arrived at the hostel, we had been told that if we wanted to skydive, we would have to jump off the bus and arrange to do it in the morning.
By this point in our trip, I had convinced myself that I definitely wanted to do it! This was a huge deal for me, for a few good reasons. 1) I’m terrified of that “falling feeling” you get from a simple log chute. I absolutely hate that sensation!! 2) I have an intense fear of heights. 3) I can’t stand anything that goes too fast – especially something that I’m not in control of! I need to be able to slow down when I want to!
Despite these fears, Henk had told me about his skydive experiences, and as we’ve been traveling, I’ve learned more about the dive and met an increasing number of people who took on the adventure. Needless to say, I was won over by the excitement of it! Part of the point of this trip, I think, is to broaden what I’ve experienced and skydiving would do that for sure.
So we planned to go skydiving the next morning, providing the weather was OK. That night we relaxed watching some of my much-needed Gossip Girl episodes (I missed two seasons, so I have a lot of catching up to do) and enjoying a rather strange chicken satay pizza with an Italian herb and cheese stuffed crust from Pizza Hut… probably the strangest but surprisingly decent pizza I’ve ever had. Henk’s choice. :P
From the moment I woke up the next morning, I was already nervous with anticipation. I just kept telling myself that once you’ve taken that dive out of the plane, it is too late to change your mind! And well, I kinda kept repeating that to myself as a mantra in my subconscious throughout the day – I’ve already decided I’m going, so therefore, I’m going. It’s much easier to convince yourself the experience won’t be that bad if you’ve already persuaded your mind that you have no choice in the matter. :D
The Rainbow Lodge, that’s the hostel we are staying at, has a large common room next to the kitchen filled with board games. We went through about 7 or 8 rounds of “Guess Who?” and half a game of Monopoly: New Zealand Edition before our shuttle for the skydiving arrived to take us to the airport. Three skydiving companies operate side-by-side at the airport, and all their packages are extremely similar – for $499 New Zealand (about $300 USD) you can get your skydive from 15,000 feet, a DVD of your skydive, a bunch of skydive pictures and they even throw in a T-shirt. (I swear, I didn’t jump just to get the T-shirt! But it might half been a good motivator.)
The company we chose to go with was Skydive Taupo; the same company Henk went with when he did his skydive. We had decided because of both funds and the fact that Henk had already done a skydive that I was going to skydive by myself – but of course he came to watch! (And take tons of pictures… and conduct his own pre and post-skydive interviews with me! LOL!) There were three other people (one girl from our previous Stray bus and two guys) doing the jump at the same time with me. They sat us all down and had us pick 3 songs each for our DVDs (one for the ride up, one for the actual freefall jump, and one for the parachute ride down) and showed us an example DVD. It looked awesome!
By then we were meeting our skydive instructors (each instructor has done over 1000 jumps before they are even allowed to bring anyone with them) – mine was Alex – and getting into our bright blue jumpsuits. Later, I learned the stats from Henk: Skydive Taupo conducts over 30,000 jumps per year, and each year, in only 10 to 15 of these jumps do the emergency parachutes need to be pulled. Furthermore, all of those jumps end with everyone landing safely on the ground. With statistics like those, skydiving is probably much safer than driving!
Alex took some pictures with me and asked me some questions for the DVD, but I was so nervous I couldn’t really think of how to answer! You’ll see in the upload of the video we’ll do… my voice sounds pretty high pitched in some of the scenes. But there was a slight comfort: we were doing our skydive from a bright pink airplane named Pinky! (Our parachute was pink too by the way! So look for that one in the photos.) Extremely small, Pinky can hold probably 4-5 skydive instructor and diver teams. But you have to basically all sit on top of each other. Makes no difference, you won’t be coming back down in that plane so comfort is not the greatest concern!
As we were taking the 15 minute flight up to 15,000 feet (which, by the way, is the highest skydive you can do in the world! And Taupo is the only place to do it in.) I looked around at my fellow skydive passengers. While the instructors looked completely at ease (they each do 6-8 jumps per day), us divers had this look on our faces that I’ll never forget. It was a cross between extremely nervous anticipation and excited terror! As I locked eyes with one of the guys when he was about to jump, I knew skydiving would be something I’d never ever forget!
I was the third person out of four to jump, and I tried not to look down as Alex slid us down the plane, and told me to hang my legs out of the door. So casually… just hang my legs out of the airplane! If he didn’t seem so confident, the situation would have seemed absolutely crazy! The next thing I knew, we were tumbling in midair somewhere high above the clouds. For the first 5 or 6 seconds, I felt that horrible sensation I always try to avoid by skipping log chutes at theme parks!
But in almost an instant, that sensation was gone – replaced by the loud noise and sensation of wind whipping past my face, and extreme cold (0 degrees F or -15 degrees C). In those few seconds, we went from 0 to 120 MPH (that’s 200 KPH)… an insane feeling! You are in a good deal of shock, trying to take in as many of the new sensations and sights as possible. The ground looks far away, but it hardly registers because of everything else you’re experiencing. Freezing cold fingers, ankles, ears that plugged up… clouds rushing past you and somewhere down there... is the ground.
After what was about 60 seconds of freefall (but seemed like 15 or 20 seconds) Alex pulled the chute. We were pulled back and slowed down to a float above the city. I could see Lake Taupo, the mountains, and the landscape of the city below. I took in the horizon – it was breathtaking. I think the first words out of my mouth after the freefall were “Oh my God!” The site was almost unbelievable to understand – I wasn’t looking down through an airplane window at the city below. I was floating above it! In basically nothing; there was no chair I was sitting in, nothing surrounding my entire body. Such a strange sense of freedom! It was pretty nerve-racking to realize this fact, after just having fallen with such a fast acceleration!
Alex did some turns, (some of which made me feel like passing out, it was so much to take in!) floating us all over, and eventually we made our way back down to the Earth. Henk said it looked like we were coming in really fast, but after having gone so much faster a few minutes before, I could hardly tell. We skidded to a stop on the ground – I felt so cold and numb! I untangled myself from the gear as Henk continued to snap pictures excitedly. He was so proud that I had been so determined to brave my combined fears and go skydiving!
We both got a good laugh watching my skydive video. My cheeks are flapping with the wind (hey, I’m going 100 MPH with nothing blocking the wind from my face!) and because I couldn’t stop from trying to smile in the video, I ended up with a beautiful glob of drool on my cheek. Hey, you try skydiving! Your video will end up looking exactly the same! One of the best parts of the video is my immediate post-skydive interview. I’m literally at a loss for words. Alex asked me how I was feeling and I was like, “ahhh…” I could not process much at that point!
HERE IS THE VIDEO!! ENJOY!
Post-skydive, Henk and I finished our game of Monopoly (I won, but it was definitely not a fair game cause he gave me a few streets for free… but only because I was losing before that!! I needed those streets. :P) and after grabbing some groceries, had a well-deserved dinner out at this little Italian place. Garlic bread and a shared spicy Italian sausage, mushroom, and onion pasta! So delicious! I was starving – even though skydiving technically isn’t the most active sport (I mean really, you’re just falling for most of it!) the constant nervous anticipation creates an adrenaline that must burn a ton of calories in your body.
Wednesday is a free day for us, but we might need to pick up some more thermal and fleece clothes because Thursday we head for Tongariro Crossing with our new Stray bus. Tongariro is literally Mt. Doom from Lord of the Rings. So picture that! Exploring it involves a 6 to 7 hour hike with ice picks and really REALLY warm clothing. GOOD! I need a little relative “down-time” after skydiving. Just kidding!
Talk to you all later!
Francesca
AND-- Oh… my… GOD! I went skydiving today!! But first, I’m going to recap what happened since we last posted. So currently we are in Taupo, one of the skydiving capitals of the world. After making some breakfast (I’m getting so sick of bread and cheese!) Henk and I took a short walk to a neat little area filled with a bunch of mini mud pools, similar to the larger ones we had seen at Wai-O-Tapu, except these were scattered throughout a large playground/park. We stopped for a few minutes to act like little kids on the swing sets, and then explored the pools until it was time to get ready for our pick-up.
We left Rotorua around noon, jumping on the next available Stray bus. And who happened to be our driver? It was Nat again, our last-minute Stray driver from a few days before. We noticed our bus was significantly bigger than the previous ones we had been on – and for good reason, there were almost 20 travelers on this bus! We tossed our stuff in the back (OK, Henk did while I scoped out the best possible bus seats left!) and shortly after met all of our new companions.
Our main stops for the day:
While Henk and I preferred to stay dry, some of our bus companions took the opportunity to swim in a hot-water river, hot because of the lava flowing under the ground beneath the water. We walked around and watched as the other travelers tossed themselves into the water, making sure we got a good look at the sign posted next to the river.
Posted by New Zealand’s Department of Conservation, the sign read: DANGER! Do not put head in water—amoebic meningitis is fatal and caused by water entering the nasal passages.
Sounds yummy! Amoebic meningitis is not exactly one of the “must-do” experiences I have on my list for New Zealand… I was pretty happy with the decision we made to not get in the water this time.
Another stop was Huka Falls. An awesomely dangerous-looking canal and waterfall, Huka Falls resembles something greater than the toughest rapids you might take on in any white-water rafting trip. Taking millions of years to even form, the falls was created by a river cutting a deep narrow channel into a layer of soft mudstone and pumice that had been formed by the ancient lake in the area previously. As the river eroded further, the channel became increasingly steeper, thus increasing the intense rapids of the water flowing down the falls.
Furthermore, the color of the water was this awesomely bright shade of light/medium blue. We learned that this color was due to the very clear water reflecting blue light, and that the air bubbles in the water intensify the blue color. To give you an idea about the intensity of the falls (as it is a bit difficult to imagine from just pictures), the volume of water passing over the falls varies between 32 and 270 cubic meters per second; the height of the falls fluctuates between 7 and 9.5 meters depending on volume.
Done at Huka falls, we left to take on an even bigger fall for the day: skydiving was scheduled for around 4 pm that afternoon. However, due to the excess wind, by the time we arrived at the hostel, we had been told that if we wanted to skydive, we would have to jump off the bus and arrange to do it in the morning.
By this point in our trip, I had convinced myself that I definitely wanted to do it! This was a huge deal for me, for a few good reasons. 1) I’m terrified of that “falling feeling” you get from a simple log chute. I absolutely hate that sensation!! 2) I have an intense fear of heights. 3) I can’t stand anything that goes too fast – especially something that I’m not in control of! I need to be able to slow down when I want to!
Despite these fears, Henk had told me about his skydive experiences, and as we’ve been traveling, I’ve learned more about the dive and met an increasing number of people who took on the adventure. Needless to say, I was won over by the excitement of it! Part of the point of this trip, I think, is to broaden what I’ve experienced and skydiving would do that for sure.
So we planned to go skydiving the next morning, providing the weather was OK. That night we relaxed watching some of my much-needed Gossip Girl episodes (I missed two seasons, so I have a lot of catching up to do) and enjoying a rather strange chicken satay pizza with an Italian herb and cheese stuffed crust from Pizza Hut… probably the strangest but surprisingly decent pizza I’ve ever had. Henk’s choice. :P
From the moment I woke up the next morning, I was already nervous with anticipation. I just kept telling myself that once you’ve taken that dive out of the plane, it is too late to change your mind! And well, I kinda kept repeating that to myself as a mantra in my subconscious throughout the day – I’ve already decided I’m going, so therefore, I’m going. It’s much easier to convince yourself the experience won’t be that bad if you’ve already persuaded your mind that you have no choice in the matter. :D
The Rainbow Lodge, that’s the hostel we are staying at, has a large common room next to the kitchen filled with board games. We went through about 7 or 8 rounds of “Guess Who?” and half a game of Monopoly: New Zealand Edition before our shuttle for the skydiving arrived to take us to the airport. Three skydiving companies operate side-by-side at the airport, and all their packages are extremely similar – for $499 New Zealand (about $300 USD) you can get your skydive from 15,000 feet, a DVD of your skydive, a bunch of skydive pictures and they even throw in a T-shirt. (I swear, I didn’t jump just to get the T-shirt! But it might half been a good motivator.)
The company we chose to go with was Skydive Taupo; the same company Henk went with when he did his skydive. We had decided because of both funds and the fact that Henk had already done a skydive that I was going to skydive by myself – but of course he came to watch! (And take tons of pictures… and conduct his own pre and post-skydive interviews with me! LOL!) There were three other people (one girl from our previous Stray bus and two guys) doing the jump at the same time with me. They sat us all down and had us pick 3 songs each for our DVDs (one for the ride up, one for the actual freefall jump, and one for the parachute ride down) and showed us an example DVD. It looked awesome!
By then we were meeting our skydive instructors (each instructor has done over 1000 jumps before they are even allowed to bring anyone with them) – mine was Alex – and getting into our bright blue jumpsuits. Later, I learned the stats from Henk: Skydive Taupo conducts over 30,000 jumps per year, and each year, in only 10 to 15 of these jumps do the emergency parachutes need to be pulled. Furthermore, all of those jumps end with everyone landing safely on the ground. With statistics like those, skydiving is probably much safer than driving!
Alex took some pictures with me and asked me some questions for the DVD, but I was so nervous I couldn’t really think of how to answer! You’ll see in the upload of the video we’ll do… my voice sounds pretty high pitched in some of the scenes. But there was a slight comfort: we were doing our skydive from a bright pink airplane named Pinky! (Our parachute was pink too by the way! So look for that one in the photos.) Extremely small, Pinky can hold probably 4-5 skydive instructor and diver teams. But you have to basically all sit on top of each other. Makes no difference, you won’t be coming back down in that plane so comfort is not the greatest concern!
As we were taking the 15 minute flight up to 15,000 feet (which, by the way, is the highest skydive you can do in the world! And Taupo is the only place to do it in.) I looked around at my fellow skydive passengers. While the instructors looked completely at ease (they each do 6-8 jumps per day), us divers had this look on our faces that I’ll never forget. It was a cross between extremely nervous anticipation and excited terror! As I locked eyes with one of the guys when he was about to jump, I knew skydiving would be something I’d never ever forget!
I was the third person out of four to jump, and I tried not to look down as Alex slid us down the plane, and told me to hang my legs out of the door. So casually… just hang my legs out of the airplane! If he didn’t seem so confident, the situation would have seemed absolutely crazy! The next thing I knew, we were tumbling in midair somewhere high above the clouds. For the first 5 or 6 seconds, I felt that horrible sensation I always try to avoid by skipping log chutes at theme parks!
But in almost an instant, that sensation was gone – replaced by the loud noise and sensation of wind whipping past my face, and extreme cold (0 degrees F or -15 degrees C). In those few seconds, we went from 0 to 120 MPH (that’s 200 KPH)… an insane feeling! You are in a good deal of shock, trying to take in as many of the new sensations and sights as possible. The ground looks far away, but it hardly registers because of everything else you’re experiencing. Freezing cold fingers, ankles, ears that plugged up… clouds rushing past you and somewhere down there... is the ground.
After what was about 60 seconds of freefall (but seemed like 15 or 20 seconds) Alex pulled the chute. We were pulled back and slowed down to a float above the city. I could see Lake Taupo, the mountains, and the landscape of the city below. I took in the horizon – it was breathtaking. I think the first words out of my mouth after the freefall were “Oh my God!” The site was almost unbelievable to understand – I wasn’t looking down through an airplane window at the city below. I was floating above it! In basically nothing; there was no chair I was sitting in, nothing surrounding my entire body. Such a strange sense of freedom! It was pretty nerve-racking to realize this fact, after just having fallen with such a fast acceleration!
Alex did some turns, (some of which made me feel like passing out, it was so much to take in!) floating us all over, and eventually we made our way back down to the Earth. Henk said it looked like we were coming in really fast, but after having gone so much faster a few minutes before, I could hardly tell. We skidded to a stop on the ground – I felt so cold and numb! I untangled myself from the gear as Henk continued to snap pictures excitedly. He was so proud that I had been so determined to brave my combined fears and go skydiving!
We both got a good laugh watching my skydive video. My cheeks are flapping with the wind (hey, I’m going 100 MPH with nothing blocking the wind from my face!) and because I couldn’t stop from trying to smile in the video, I ended up with a beautiful glob of drool on my cheek. Hey, you try skydiving! Your video will end up looking exactly the same! One of the best parts of the video is my immediate post-skydive interview. I’m literally at a loss for words. Alex asked me how I was feeling and I was like, “ahhh…” I could not process much at that point!
HERE IS THE VIDEO!! ENJOY!
Post-skydive, Henk and I finished our game of Monopoly (I won, but it was definitely not a fair game cause he gave me a few streets for free… but only because I was losing before that!! I needed those streets. :P) and after grabbing some groceries, had a well-deserved dinner out at this little Italian place. Garlic bread and a shared spicy Italian sausage, mushroom, and onion pasta! So delicious! I was starving – even though skydiving technically isn’t the most active sport (I mean really, you’re just falling for most of it!) the constant nervous anticipation creates an adrenaline that must burn a ton of calories in your body.
Wednesday is a free day for us, but we might need to pick up some more thermal and fleece clothes because Thursday we head for Tongariro Crossing with our new Stray bus. Tongariro is literally Mt. Doom from Lord of the Rings. So picture that! Exploring it involves a 6 to 7 hour hike with ice picks and really REALLY warm clothing. GOOD! I need a little relative “down-time” after skydiving. Just kidding!
Talk to you all later!
Francesca
