Monday, July 10, 2006

Jumping off the plane

I'm currently here in Taupo at the North island of New Zealand. This is probably the cheapest place to do skydive in NZ. I had prebooked a skydive from Auckland which was pretty risky since I needed a good weather to commit the jump here in Taupo. There was no refund possibility for the prepaid ticket.

The first day the sky was blue and sun was shining but I wasn't able to jump since the winds were too strong. On the second day morning I was refused to jump again since the wind was still too strong and it was a little bit cloudy. Luckily on the afternoon the skies got clear and I was able to do the jump. I blamed myself though for taking a little bit of unnecessary risk with prepaid ticket. I heard that one couple had waited for a whole week for a suitable weather so I can consider myself really lucky. However the jump was a great experience, not too hard since you don't have to do almost anything because it's a tandem jump. My jumpmaster had around 9000 jumps so I was feeling pretty safe. What a coincidence that he was from my neighbouring country Sweden, but had lived here in NZ for 5 years. I impressed him with my strong Swedish skills.

This morning I woke up at 5:30 and was ready to do the Tongariro crossing, which is regarded one of the best 1-day walks in NZ. Unfortunately the winds had got stronger and the visibility poorer on the mountains and the trek was cancelled 15 mins before departure. Tomorrow I'll give another try, but the forecasts don't seem quite good so I'll be probably off to Wellington.

I'm staying at the Rainbow lodge which is really good and laid back hostel. Yesterday we got a new person to our dorm. He's really delightful with awful smelling socks and a loud snore. This really beats most of the records!

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