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World Travelling with Mark And Lilly
I did it!!!! I flew over queenstown area in the air!!!
saturday morning, early wake up call, I checked the weather with immense relief as it is a clear and beautiful day after yesterday's poor visibility and snow in the village. I am greeted by a beautiful sunshine... youpi!!!
Time to phone Vertical descent, a skydiving company and confirm to see if my skydive is still on.
At 11 am, I embarked on their mini van and start to feel more and more worried as we get closer to glenorchy, the superb lord of the rings country (where many parts of the films were shot) where the skydiving is taking place. As soon as I stepped out of the van, I meet Peter my skymaster who is a small and skinny man from Singapore, I was allocated to him in order to try to free fall as long as possible due to our combiend light weight! I chose to do a 12 000 feet jump, nearly 4000meters, approximately 45 seconds free falling depending on weight.
My skymaster prepared my harness and tried to reassure me telling me what I will have to do up there.
another big australian man will be jumping at the same time in a tandem too and seems really scared. as soon as the equipement is ready , we climb into a small plane and I have to sit the closest to the door as we will be jumping first. The view from the plane is beautiful and amazing but I am also focusing on the altometer ( to check at what altitude we are). 10 thousand feet: time to put the goggles on, my heart is getting crasy. sunddenly the door of the plane opens: ouch I am very close to the door and getting a lot of wind in my face: trying not to look too much down... and staying concentrated on the teacher instructions...
my heart is going to explode at that rate!!
here we go an adrenaline rush: a second later a guy passes me and jumps with his body vertically watching us from the door, that surprises me even more but he has to go first as he is training. I put my legs outside the door , my body half in the plane on the master laps and half hanging out of the door, scary....
folding my arms, resting my head over the master shoulder, and the jump is a blur: can not remember if we turned on ourselves or just fell head firsts.....
the feeling is incredible and the fear gone: I can feel the speed on my face and my right eye is watering: a very weird feeling of "apesanteur" (lightness). I then noticed the presence of another master facing me, very close to me. thinking he is coaching me, I followed his positions and look at him,. I will later realize at the landing that he was not at all coaching me but training to take pictures!!!!! What a stupid idea!!!!
When the skymaster opens the parachute, I wonder what he is doing as I honestly feels that it has been only 20 seconds free falling. the time feels so short..... It actually occurs that we were 50 seconds free falling....
under the parachute, there is more time to look at the scenery and it feels a bit more like paragliding.... the stunning southern alps, snow capp montains, turquoise lake makes Glenorchy the perfect place.
we land on our bums due to the cross wind. A massive grin on my face and still not realising the impact of my jump.I tell my master that it goes far too fast!!! he used to jump for the singapourian army at 45 000 feet, free falling 2 minutes, so here we go: I know what I need to do if I want longer free falling!!!!! Just kidding!!!
what an exhilarating experience.....
On the ground, The guy who I thought was instructing me in the air reveals that he is a trainee photographer and offers me a bargain: he will sell me his pictures for a fifth of the price as he is still training!!!
If you have any doubts about doing it: you must try, check my smile on the pictures: not too scared but a fabulous rush of adrenaline!!! not many sports equal that feeling
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