The Wandering Chocoholic

Mom, you okay? Still breathing? I’m on the ground, safe. You can exhale now. Okay? Good.

Yes, that’s right, I just got back from my first skydiving experience. I seriously wasn’t going to go, but after hearing person after person rave about how incredible it was, I figured, why not? Taupo is the least expensive place in New Zealand to try skydiving, and so when I got back into town this afternoon, I called them up and booked it for right away, so I wouldn’t have a chance to chicken out.

Over at the airstrip, it was another story altogether. I was on the last flight of the day, so I had about an hour to cool my heels and contemplate the fact that I was about to jump out of a plane at 12,000 feet. Yes, I would be secured to an instructor, but it was still freaking me out. One of the other skydivers I was chatting with told me I was wearing out the concrete.

But wow, what an amazing experience it was! We got to jump right at sunset, thanks to daylight savings time ending last night. There was some cloud cover and we could see the sun setting over Lake Taupo above the clouds. It was beautiful.

The scariest part is actually exiting the plane… because it feels so wrong to be out in the open. Luckily, I didn’t have to jump really; the instructor does all the work and all I had to do was sort of lean out. Then, a 45-second freefall through the air at 200km/hr before the instructor opens the chute at about 5,000 feet and begins a five-minute gentle descent.

After skydiving, everything else is going to feel like a letdown, I think. I’m pretty sure this was a once-in-a-lifetime experience, but wow would I love to go again!