So this morning I went to Taupo airport for my sky-dive! After spending Thursday and Friday wondering what the hell I was about to do, I felt surprisingly calm in the bus on the way to the airport. There was another girl from the UK there who had never jumped before either so we comforted each other a bit! After getting ready and meeting my tandem partner, 4 of us piled into the smallest plane and took to the sky. We got the most amazing views over Lake Taupo and the surrounding mountains on the flight up, much better than from the ground. It had been quite misty over the Lake the last couple of days so it was hard to get a true impression of its scale and mountain setting. After about 5 minutes we reached 5,000 feet and my partner told me that this was about where we'd open the parachute up. We then flew up for another 15 minutes to get to 15,000 feet...the side door of the plane was opened and out we popped! As I was first in the plane I was last to jump, but it felt like quite a natural thing to do after watching 3 others go out! The free fall was amazing, could see so much of the landscape surrounding us despite my face being distorted by the wind! Apparently we should have been able to see both the east and west coast of the North Island, but i had no clue! After about 60 seconds of freefall and reaching terminal velocity (!) my partner released the parachute. It was so serene, seeing over the entire Lake in absolute silence. I think my partner got a bit carried away with the sightseeing though as all his twisting and turning of the parachute made me feel pretty queasy! The landing was smoother than I expected. A very nice way to see Lake Taupo!

In the afternoon we took the bus from Taupo to Napier, on the east coast. The bus journey was one of the most scenic we've had so far, through a valley of lush rainforest.

-S