Day 88 Wanaka (Sky dive and Paraglide)

"It takes a certain kind of person to step out of an aircraft at 15,000ft into thin air. It takes courage."

"Why jump out of a perfectly good Aeroplane? Why climb a great mountain that does not know you exist? Why run a marathon? Deep in the human consciousness is a pervasive need for a logical universe that makes sense. But the real universe is always one step beyond logic. We do these things. It is something deep within us, the need to feed our voracious appetite for danger and glory. It is the spirit of man."

"You step out of that aircarft door at 15000ft into thin air and for some 65 seconds you plummet towards the ground at 200 km/h.Your jump master will deploy the reinforced tandem parachute canopy controlling your entire skydive. Expect sensory overload as your mind/soul/body fight against every natural self preservatory urge. The personal challenge in immense. Immense because the only thing preventing you from enjoying this, one of the most primal life shaping experience, is your own mind. You must choose. To go through life able to say ‘yes I did it’, or to go through life knowing that you had the opportunity, but you turned it down and walked away from becoming the complete person you could have been."

Well thats what the sales blurb said.......... I'd just like to thank one really cool guy Simon from Quebec my jumpmaster and Adam the camera man from Southport. As I drove back to Wanaka I was left to wonder why on earth Mrs Jones my career officer never had "Skydiver" in her book of school leaving occupations ?

Then in the afternoon my paraglide was green for go. I was not sure what to expect after the sensation overload in the morning and as Richard my pilot and I ran off the edge of the mountain with 2500 feet below us I was not ready for what happened next. My brain suddenly registered I was floating way above the floor of the valley with only a web harness seat thing to hold me and I became delerious with the joy of flying just like the hawk soaring nearby and none too impressed by our intrusion.

Richard kept grabbing the thermals to take us to 3000 feet and then I had two choices. Either float gently to earth or go into rapid spiralling left and right turns where you go so fast you have to hold your stomach muscles in to stop the blood going to your feet and fainting. Spirals it was and what a rush. There were moments in the flight where I came to the very edge of my panic zone to say hi and loved being that scared I felt so alive.

You are up there so much longer than the skydive. They are so different.Richard said its a basic instinct in most humans to want to fly and paragliding is as close as it gets because its not engine assisted and relies totally on your skill of the thermals and flying your wing. Just like a hawk!

I also watched on as New Zealand's No 3 girl paraglider in the world Harmony Gaw set off next to us to do a cross country paraglide. Thats where they catch the thermals on each mountain and get way up high so they can descend across the valley to the next mountain and so on and so on for miles. As we drove back to Wanaka we followed her progress as I grilled Richard on how to learn to fly.

More up in the air antics tomorrow as I take a scenic flight across the almost inaccessible Mount Aspiring and its glacier to then land at Milford Sound for boat cruise to see the beautiful fiord. ...weather permitting!!