AAAAAAARRRRRGGGGHHHHHHHHHH I skydived yesterday!!!!!!! (and nearly died - i think, but i am ok and all intact!) What a buzz, skydiving 12'000ft over lake Taupo on a gorgeous day it was AMAZING! Even more of a buzz when after 45 seconds of freefalling you drop to 5'000ft and your parachute doesn't open! Instead it drops to the ground and you get hurled back up into the air spinning then freefalling again and eventually the emergency chute opens and your saved, aliyuhlah!!! The extra freefall meant that my glide down was quite a bit shorter than it should have been but the freefall was the best bit anyway so felt rather priveleged and extremely lucky to be alive at all!! I managed to talk both Gill and Nosh into skydiving aswell which meant we had our own private plane and alot of fun on the 15 minute ascent to where we dived. Before yesterday Gill was adament she wouldn't do it but was kind of bullied into it by me and nosh, and so was not best amused in the plane when her instructor started joking around by unclicking her harness and insisting this was only his second dive himself! In the end though she loved it too although was virtually pushed out of the plane against her screams of "don't do it, don't do it!". Nosh on the other hand exited the plane screaming "banana, banana, banana!" which was the position we were told to get into when we jumped out! We all loved it and for me it was by far my best experience yet. Since my near death experience (!), I then thought it appropriate to celebrate my being alive so we all went to the nearest pub and ate curry and drank wine! Before reaching Taupo we did spend a couple of days in Wellington when we first arrived to the North Island which I quite enjoyed although it was bizarre seeing so many people and so much traffic again after all the small places we've seen so far. We're still in Taupo today and I think will be heading to Auckland later today to meet up with some family friends. Missing you all, hope all is well Any gossip i'm missing out on?? Loadsa love me xx All: Happy Valentines Day! Harriet: Happy 21st, hope you had a brilliant party (sounded like it from the drunken call i got!) Em S: Happy Birthday for Thursday Laura: Love your flat can't wait to see it!!! Natalie: Hope works ok, any goss for me?