Danger Zone

When our bus driver put on Danger Zone and started talking about the Lake Taupo skydive, a very spontaneous, crazy thought took hold.

12.000 feet, a 20 minute scenic flight, with no video included but a clear view of the North Island above the great Lake Taupo?

Why not?

When they give you your jumpsuit and strap on your harness, that's when the nerves kick in.
And during the flight up, that's when your stomach starts to protest.

And when they push the person in front of you towards the front of the plane, when you see your friends just... fall out sideways and plummet down, and when the instructor strapped to your back proceeds to push you to the plane door...

Let's just say every cell in your body is screaming "what the hell are you doing".

Then your legs dangle at airplane-height with nothing holding you except for the instructor hanging on to the plane...

...and then he lets go.

You free-fall thousands of feet per second and the wind is in your hair and the great wide lake and New Zealand is spread out below you and it's exhilarating. I screamed and screamed and felt the adrenaline pump through my veins...

And then they blow up the parachute and suddenly it's dead quiet. And you're laughing and crying and the instructor swings you around and the only sound is the wind flapping above. I was allowed brief control of the parachute, and let me tell you there's nothing quite as satisfying as swinging through the air, hundreds of feet from the ground, with all the control in your palms.

I still can't get the smile from my face. I would have paid for the video, if it wasn't almost as much as the dive itself.


Here's our faces before:

And here's our faces after: