Bye Bye, New Zealand
| Off to the North Island |
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Bye Bye, New Zealand |
We Jumped!!! : 25 November 2003
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We've seen the whole North Island, from the very north to the very south and from 12,000 ft above. We're heading away from the north island via a giant Ferry boat that is loaded with school kids. We will be 3 hours on this ship then onto another bus to head back to.....oh yhea...you guessed it...Christchurch. The North Island was beautiful. It was entirely different than the South Island, which is still my personal favorite. This island is all rolling hills and farmland, where the south was all pointy, snow-capped mountains and teal lakes from the silt carried by glaciers. The south feels like some fairy land, while the north feels like Oregon.
We spent a day at the Bay Of Islands where we just hung out and enjoyed a down day. It was freezing. The flight up was absolutely frightening. There where no chairs, so we all crawled in and sat our butts on the floor of this tiny single engine airplane. The anxiety was building to new levels as the land below got smaller and smaller and we where only at about 4,000 ft...holy shit...we had 8,000 more feet to climb. We finally reached 12,000 ft...the door slides open, I was clenching the hand rail with white knuckles. The camera man casually hangs on the airplane, dangling outside (crazy) I was harnessed to my guy as he slid me to the edge of the door...oh my God!!!! I had to bend my knees to keep my feet under the plane, this is a very unnatural feeling, and tilt my head back (very important...definately do not want to head butt your tandem guy). He slowly slides himself to the edge, mind you I'm hanging outside now at 12,000 feet high..one, two, aaaaaaaaahhhhhhh! what happened to three? We plumetted to the ground at real time for 7,000 feet. My face felt like it was above me. It was awesome...suddenly out of nowhere my camera guy pops up in my face and gestures to smile or something...yeah right...remember my face is above me..i have no lip control...i'm sure i was drooling upwards, lovely. At 5,000 ft the shoot opened oooh..hhoohoho..yeah..thid is sooooo cool! So scarey..and so dam high! "we made it" my guy said...whatever, who is he kidding, we are still 5,000 up...I will accept his "we made it" crap when both my feet are on the ground. The ride from here was amazing. It was a slow pleasant float for about 4.5 minutes. We did fun spins and swerves..I absolutley loved it, I was ready to go again that same day.... Robin's take: We hit the jump height, and the door came open. Before I could even say anything, Andrea was out the door! When you're up there, you sort of kick into auto-pilot, and just do what you're told. Through some combination of gesture and grunt, my guy pointed me to the door. I slid my butt over, and soon was also dangling out to nowhere. The "jump" itself, was almost nothing. My guy slowly rolled out of the plane, and next thing I knew was an endless blast of wind in my face. As a matter of fact, about the only thing I remember from the freefall part was so much wind blasting in my face that I could barely breathe. Then the photographer was floating around me, and I tried to smile. Next thing I knew the parachute was out, and my first thought was "I can't feel my leg." Thankfully, my guy told me I could sort of ease the straps down my thighs a bit, and blood flow was restored to my pained leg. The rest of the descent was a beautiful glide down, even if I didn't get the cool spins and dips that Andrea did. I watched her land, then came in gently behind her. It's a little odd being suspended about 100 feet above a busy highway falling to the ground. Over all I would like to try it again now that I'm a little more prepared for what's going to happen, but I think I liked the bungy jump better. Well after that amazing jump...of course you have this high, this excitement, this feeling that you can do anything. Ha ha ha...the next day, we did this thing called "Rockin' Ropes". This truly terrified me. I was pissed at Robin for being nice and trying to be helpfull by saying "you can do it"...that made me mad because I didn't want to do it, I mean I did, I just was so scared. In this fun little venture..we where, once again, harnessed up..so far a harness has been a daily part of my wardrobe. We get a quick lesson on belaying. For those who don't what this is, I know I didn't, it is the guy that controls the rope that you are harnessed to. Basically the guy that will stop you from falling to the ground. Now this doesn't really help me and my fear. Robin is my rope guy and I am his...I mean no offense but if I'm going to balance myself on a pole at 150 ft in the air and jump to catch some stupid trapeze bar, well, a professional belayer would be nice. In any case, Robin did an excellent job...I think I see a new career path for him. In any case we had to climb these ungodly heights and do these stupid things (mental) for example, walk across a log with no hands forwards, oh and because that's not scary enough, they make you do it backwards...insane. It was totally windy and the poles and logs where swaying. Robin, by the way, practically ran across this..very impressive. The trapeze, which I absolutely, without a doubt, swore I would never do..no way, no how..was by far the one of the hardest things things I've ever done. It is supposed to boost your confidence, help you overcome the fear of heights...blah, blah, blah..it was terrifying..it was insane..I cannot decide if I liked it or just really hated it. I am glad I did it though...I think...koo koo. The trip wasn't all death defying jumps. On Lake Taupo, the whole group went out on the lake for a night of fishing, eating, drinking, and kareoke. Even our new intrepid leaders had a few "quiet beverages" as Jo calls it, and were singing up a storm. Our first night in Wellington included a night out as well, this one to watch the World Cup rugby final between Australia and England. What a game! It was our first ever rugby game to watch all the way through, and it was a close one. For the very few of you that care, England won, bringing the cup to the northern hemisphere for the first time ever. And the game was really close... tied at the end of the normal play, and again at the end of the first overtime period. CONGRATULATIONS ADRIAN...YOU DAM POMMIE! Oh and you too Chris..you Anglophile..heehee.... Wellington is a great little city, but we didn't get to see too much of it on our second day there, because we went out and did another "adventure" activitiy. This time it was quad-biking in the back country out of town. The drive up was another nail-biter, up a one lane windy road, complete with rusted out cars tumbled down the sides of the cliff. The group was each given complete mud protection clothes, and our very own quad bike. We then went through a little training ground, then on to the path through the woods. Though we were mostly limited in our speed by the slowpokes in front, we did get to go fast on a few occasions and splash through some great mud puddles. You could tell the people that enjoyed themselves the most by the amount of mud splattered on them at the end of the ride. We definately enjoyed ourselves...Andrea got a free mud mask. ---- Update: We've arrived in Wellington on our drive back up. That's right, we're actually driving ourselves now, on the wrong side of the road and everything. So far, it's been no real problems, and we've always found the correct side of the road to drive on before anyone came close. We'll let you know more about the drive on the next update....
Last comment before we sign off, Robin drives tooo fast and ... (it's all lies! lies I tell you...) (OK, the driving part. It is really cold....) |
Replies: 4 comments
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ha ha! that really was my comment not alan's Posted by a l la @ 11/26/2003 12:46 PM PST |
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by the way i've changed my name to l la Posted by adrian @ 11/26/2003 12:47 PM PST |
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when you pass gas down under does it float down instead of up? Posted by jeff blodg @ 11/26/2003 12:48 PM PST |
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Jeff, you're such a freak. Posted by Robin @ 11/27/2003 08:55 PM PST |
