A hint of winter and a LONG drop

I returned last night from my first road trip! I picked up my new car Wed. morning and was on the road Wed. afternoon. (I was supposed to get the car Tues. night – but I won’t go into boring details; suffice it to say that the whole thing was more of a pain than I had hoped).
My travel companion (for whose birthday this whole trip came up) was my roommate – Bobbie. It was a nice 3.5 hour drive from Auckland to Taupo involving only one missed turn (which we realized as soon as we passed it) and only one reminder that I was on the wrong side of the road :) The landscape reminded me hobbiton (Lord of the Rings -LOTR) - there are crazy hills EVERYWHERE. You’re just driving along and pretty soon there are 4 or 5 tall, but somehow small, hills all grouped together. All they need are some doors and windows and they’d be the perfect place for a hobbit to live! Most of the hills are a beautiful green grassy color, due to previous logging and current grazing (yep, cows and sheep everywhere, even a few alpacas). Some of the hills/mountains were currently being logged, which was pretty ugly. A couple of mountains were only half logged, creating a bizarre lopsided forest with a perfect line between clear cut (or maybe some small new growth trees) and the old forest. Kind of bizarre.

Our arrival at the pre-booked Rainbow Lodge was pretty simple (once we got on the right road). It was a very nice place (huge) with a sauna (!) and separate TV room (which we geeked out on for WAY to long after dinner). We put all our stuff in our rooms, headed toward the lake, and looked for a place to eat. The lake was beautiful, surrounded by hills with a couple of mountains far off in the background. These snowcapped mountains are the home of the Tongariro crossing and of Mount Doom (again LOTR). I kept kicking myself for forgetting to take my camera! We picked up some dinner and headed back to the hostel for the night (no, we didn’t use the sauna).

Bobbie was quite surprised with how much cooler the weather was in Taupo – she hadn’t considered a change in elevation. There was a definite chill in the air when we arrived that evening. What surprised her even more was seeing a good layer of frost on the ground (and car) the next morning! A little touch of weather to come? Not sure if Auckland ever gets a freeze or not, but Bobbie is happy Auckland is where is she’s wintering. I put on my long johns and we went for an early morning walk in town to Bobbie’s ATM. After a short panic, in which she thought she hadn’t gotten paid, we walked back down by the lake. The cloudless sky above was a beautiful pale blue, but there was a heavy fog hanging over the lake. The water’s surface had bits of mist drifting off of it. Really pretty.

We headed back to the hostel, checked out, and climbed into a long white limousine. We were going skydiving – and we were going in style! There were 4 of us in the limo, along with one mom just going to watch, but we there were several more people at the airport when we arrived. We all sat through a demo DVD and a brief description of our purchase options – 45 seconds of freefall from 12,000 feet, or 60+ seconds of freefall from 15,000 feet. Bobbie and I had already decided we were both going from 15,000 feet and buying the whole package (DVD and CD of still pictures – plus we got a free t-shirt and one of those dumb rubber bracelets (what is the deal with those things?)). I think we were both surprised when every other person in the group chose to jump from 12,000 feet. They were all doing the DVD package deal, why not spend the extra $80 and get those extra amazing 20 seconds of free fall? Several of the people later said they wish they had.

So, we signed our names stating that no one would get sued if we died (afterall, one of their crew would have been injured/killed too, since they were attached to us if something happened), put on our cool blue jumpsuits, and got cinched into a very secure harness. They ended up running two plane loads of people that morning. We were in the first plane, along with 2 other guys (and their tandem partners).

Now, I must say, Bobbie has been thinking about, and worrying about, this dive for the last several days. She woke up extra early that morning because she was so sick at the thought of sky diving. But this was her birthday present for herself and she really did want to do it. I, on the other hand, put hardly any thought into it other than knowing that sometime after 9am on Thursday the 5th of June I would be falling out of the sky. It didn’t scare me, it didn’t worry me, in fact I wasn’t even that excited about it! It was just a fact. I started getting pretty excited after watching the intro DVD and wearing a harness. It barely started sinking into me what I was going to do. So, when I watched the first 2 people sit in the plane’s door and just… disappear, I was like “What, Why?, Oh my lord”. :-0 I started to get a bit excited, but not really nervous. After the second 2 people rolled out, the plane door was closed and we continued up to 15,000 feet. Bobbie and her partner (Dean?) went out the door first. That’s when it hit me. I actually watched her do the roll out and fall into nothingness. I, and my partner (Mac), were the only people in the plane (that weren’t at controls anyway). I think I started screaming before I even got my feet out the door!!! It wasn’t so much that I didn’t want to do it, but screaming just makes these kind of things fun. I mean, I never really need to scream on a roller coaster ride or when I’m upside down at the fair – but it just makes it more fun and scary. So, I started screaming before I even fell into nothingness. I was vaguely aware of the pilot yelling something, but I had no idea what (when I talked to him later he said he was just screaming because I was! Awesome).

Having someone else there to do the actual rolling out of the plane makes it a lot easier to exit a perfectly good plane! I didn’t know when we were going, I just knew I wasn’t going to screw up the only thing I had to do. That was to “be the banana”. I had to arch back into my partner, and I wasn’t going to screw that up. So amid my yelling, I felt him tilt my head back and I knew we were going. I arched my back and bent my legs as far as I could. I think I did it right. It was hard to tell since I was all of the sudden completely weightless and extremely disoriented (they do a full 360 roll on exit – a little dizzying). I was now screaming because I didn’t know what the he** I was doing. I didn’t even know where my stomach was! The way they make the DVDs is by having your tandem partner record everything with a handheld camera. My video, for the entire free fall, shows me with my mouth wide open (in a scream you can’t hear) and drool running by my cheek. It’s hilarious.

After the parachute opened I was able to close my mouth and take some actual breaths (maybe that’s why he hopped me up on oxygen before we exited the plane). The view was absolutely amazing. Indescribable really. The video doesn’t do the mountains or lake any justice. The white mountains of Ruepehu are completely lost and the small mound of a lone hill can’t really be seen. But I can still remember the clouds hanging over that small butte and the snow gleaming white on the far off mountains. The lake was wide and the land was cut into nice little plots of farm and grazing land. It was 50 times better than parasailing. Not because of the view, but because you’re not attached to anything terrestrial at all. Plus, you don’t get anywhere near the rush parasailing! I can see how skydiving can be addictive! Mac got a couple more good yells of excitement out of me before we landed, by putting us into a couple tight spiral spins. They could be used for a theme ride!

The landing made me breath a bit faster. I thought the ground was still coming at us a bit to fast, but Mac was great. He had prepped me for a sit down landing. Even though my ears registered that I was supposed to stand up (because everything was perfect), my brain refused comply (I’ve already broken one leg, no need to repeat it!). So I sat, while Mac stood, making it a bit awkward for him, since we were still tightly attached. I got myself together fairly quickly and it’s hardly noticeable on the DVD. Mac unhitched us, let me clear the snot, tears, and spit off my face before doing the close for our DVD. Then I went over and gave Bobbie a big hug - we had both made it safely (watching her video later we saw that her chute was actually crossed over at first! But her extremely capable partner fixed it without her even knowing!).

It was an amazing time! The handycam DVDs are really different and pretty fun. They even let you pick out your own soundtrack, choosing 3 different songs for the intro, freefall, and parachute descent. Then, after you’ve taken everything off and are still talking about your experience, they show you your DVD on their really big screen and you get to relive the whole thing. It’s definitely a souvenir worth the price!

So, that makes three of us Dohner girls to have gone skydiving. Mom was the first (an anniversary present from dad I think – hmmmm, is that love?), Kristi did her dive in Hawai’i I think, and now me. So next time I’m in Idaho with the two of them, we are SO going sky diving together!!