Susan's visit - The Parachute Jump!!!

After our days skiing, we woke in Taupo to a beautiful clear day, perfect for Susan’s last request – a parachute jump. After a bit of indecision on my part, put aside by Susan and Seán both telling me I was doing it, and Susan deciding that Dad was paying for it (thanks Dad!), we booked our flights. We then got another pair of tyres put on our van which finally put an end to the bone shaking drives we had been experiencing!

The Taupo parachute jump companies are all based around the small Taupo airport. When we arrived we were treated to a video explaining what would happen. My stomach started turning… We then got dressed up in our jumpsuits and met our tandem partners.

Before I knew it we were heading up into the sky in a tiny airplane and I was shaking – largely due to the cold up there, but also from sheer terror. My opinion was, quite firmly, why would anyone want to jump out of a perfectly good plane! On the way up Susan’s partner pointed out many of the sites in the central north island, as we could see quite a distance. For the second day in a row we could see right over to Mount Taranaki in the west as well as Mounts Ruapehu and Ngaurahoe across the lake.

We climbed up to 15,000 feet and the door was opened – then I was in a perfectly good airplane with the door wide open! Susan was the first to go so she and her tandem partner shuffled to the door and rolled out quite quickly. The problem with that was that it was my turn to go next! I reluctantly did the shuffle to the door and my tandem partner rocked us back and forward and suddenly we were out. I was quite impressed that I managed not to scream my head off. I’m not sure if that was just cos I couldn’t make any noise at all though… We whizzed down rapidly for what felt like ages and I spent most of that time concentrating on breathing! The jump from 15,000 feet includes over a minute of freefall. With a little bump and a welcome reduction in speed our parachute opened and so started what was definitely the best part of the jump. We floated gently down taking in the breathtaking views of the lake, the mountains and green fields everywhere. From that I can really understand why people go paragliding and all those similar free flight sports.

All too soon I had to tuck my legs up and we landed with a bump back on the ground where we had started. Only then did I think of Susan and Seán. They were both still in the air (perhaps showing more enthusiasm than me) but soon landed beside me. We agreed that the jump was good fun, but unfortunately for us it wasn’t quite the buzz we had expected. On subsequent contemplation Seán and I reckon that we are both control freaks and the reason for the lack of buzz was because we had no control whatsoever over the parachute and it’s opening. Because of being entirely in the hands of our tandem jumpers we felt like we were just along for the ride. But despite that I loved the bit after the freefall was over!