Just another nice and relaxing morning today... well... apart from us jumping 15000ft out of a plane!

There is apparently no better place in the world to throw yourself out of an aircraft than over the stunning Lake Taupo and it's surrounding volcanoes. We did just ring up for a brief chat with the skydiving company, but for some unknown reason we had managed to book ourselves on to the next jump! Uh-oh...

When getting to the base pumped up with excitment and nerves, picking our drop height, putting on our harnesses and jump suits and meeting our tandem skydiver, we were boarding the little propeller plane flying upwards before we even had time to ask 'Are you sure this parachute will open???'

The climb up was the longest and most silent 20 minutes ever, actually feeling our heartbeats and pulses trying to explode. It was eventually time, when we heard the shout from the pilot and the doors opened that we knew we had reached 15000 feet and there was no turning back.

We were at the back of the plane so we had the pleasure of watching the rest of the group fall out in front of us. We were next, Dave going first, as we were shuffled forward by our instructors and made to sit with legs dangling out of the side of the plane. Without even having time to think, we were falling at 200kph, terminal velocity plummeting twards earth. We got about 1 minute free fall, trying to take in the amazing views below whilst screaming our heads off as our brains tried to comprehend what the hell was going on, spinning round and having to smile for the cameraman who was following us down at the same time. It was such a fun intense feeling flying through the sky at that speed, it didn't actually feel like we were falling at all.

In what felt like no time, our chutes were pulled and fortunatley they worked as we were gracefully soaring over the lake and volcanoes back down to solid ground. The whole experience was incredible!

Back in the van adrenalin still present, we suddenly had the clever idea of throwing ourselves 50 metres off a cliff whilst attached to a large rubber cord - BUNGY!!

The reasoning was quite simple, if we could quite happily throw ourselves out of a plane 15000ft in the air then surely it would be even easier to throw ourselves off a ledge over a cliff face that was only a mere 50 metres high? Oh how wrong we were!

We booked our tickets before we got there so there was no way of backing out...

Making our way to the edge of the platform and looking down was when the sheer terror and fear kicked in. Our legs were stapped up and the cords attached when the staff told us to walk to the edge. The instructions were simple - 'Just fall forward' The advice was also simple 'Don't look down'.

We were now alone on the edge of the platform with the staff counting down...3... the pits of our stomach started to turn and our legs started to shake...2...our brains telling us for the second time today, 'Your a bloody idiot!'...1...we started to fall forwards....BUNGY!

The next few seconds as we plunged downwards head first into the canyon was without doubt the scariest and most terrifying experience we have ever come across! The blood curdling scream that came from Claire is proof of this! The ground rush of watching the river come crashing towards us and seeing the passing cliff face as a complete blur was a feeling like nothing else! We started to feel the rope tightening around our legs and when we were about a couple of feet from the ground we were thrown back up into the air and down again, slowly slowing down...we did it!!

We were awkwardly pulled onto a little a dinghy in the river and taken to shore so we could walk back up to the top. The feeling afterwards is something that we cannot even describe. We were just unbelievable happy and couldn't actually believe that we were brave enough to go through with it.

The rest of the day was spent talking about this morning. Well, its not every day we get to talk about doing a skydive and bungy jump before lunch!

X-TREME