Day 30 - A Fun Packed Last Day

Today we awoke to he perfect day, there were no clouds to be seen the sun was shinning and not a breeze to be felt. We rushed down to the sky diving place to check that we were on for our jump which we where! Which was very lucky as this is our last day and opportunity to do the jump in Queestown.

After a briefing we where driven out to the jump zone were we where greeted by another group of tandem jumpers falling out of the sky at great speed. We where all feeling nervous at this stage. As we couldn't all fit into the one plane they divided us up into groups of three, of which we where the third group to go up.



When our turn came, we where geared up with jump suits, harness, goggles, gloves and hats. The jump suit and harness where very uncomfortable mainly due to the extreme wedgie. We where then instructed on the position to adopt whilst falling out the plane and that was about all the instructions needed. There where then nine people, including the instructors, camera men, and us, cramped into a very small plane. The space inside was very basic, with no chairs and no room to stand. We all had to sit between/on our instructors laps whilst securely fastened on to them.




Adrian's Jump Experience:
Once we'd reached 15,000 feet above the ground the see-though door opened next to me and I was shuffled out of the hatch so that my legs where hanging under the plane and my arse was barely on the floor. At the same time the camera man had climbed out the plane and was hanging from the outside of he plane taking pictures. (The mad gits!) Much to Bev's shock I was out the door very quickly and hurtling towards the ground at 150 mph. All I can say is that it was such a buzz and a lot of fun but a very unique experience.





Bev's Jump Experience:
I think my real fear kicked in after i was handed the oxygen mask at 13,000ft which i proceeded to inhale on very deeply. when we reached 15,000ft the see through door of the plane opened and one minute Adrian was there, the next he was gone!! This completely freaked me out but it was to late to turn back as i was then dangled off the edge of the plane by my instructor, rocked a couple of times, told to smile for the camera, then off we went!!! Initially the first few seconds really make your stomach go, i felt like i had left it behind in the plane, but then you get the sensation that you are flying which is an amazing feeling! After 60 seconds of free fall your chute comes out and everything goes completely silent. The view of the mountains were absolutely spectacular. Then after a minute or so my instructor proceeded to spin me all the way down to the ground which was great fun!! I would defiantly recommend doing a sky dive its a fantastic experience.





The reason for the oxygen mask was due to the height of the jump. Any jump higher than 13,000ft is classified as a high altitude jump and therefore oxygen via a mask or nasal specs is required due to the lack of oxygen at that height.




Once safely back on the ground we were taken back to Queenstown. Everyone in our group had a brilliant time and really enjoyed the sky dive. All the adrenaline had given us both an appetite so we headed off to our favourite brunch place for a full English breakfast. This went down very well indeed. We took this time to ponder on what to do for the rest of the afternoon. We decided it would be fun to try out paragliding from a boat. So after a drink at another cafe we boarded the boat and were harnessed up once again. We were both shocked at how high we actually went, and how quick the gear was that launched us up there. It was very breezy up there but the views around Queenstown were fantastic. At one point we were lowered down so much that we thought we were going to fall into the water, this freaked us both out a fair bit and we started waving frantically at the men in the boat, who didn't see us as there backs were turned!!!! After resuming a safe height above the water we headed back to Queenstown.





We then went for a beer after collecting our photos and DVDs of the sky dive.

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