"Why would I be nervous? I've done a parachute jump before ... back when I was 85," says Myrtle Pearse. Photo / Otago Daily Times
Myrtle the Turtle is for the high jump.
The Dunedin adventurer plans to jump out of an aeroplane on Saturday afternoon to celebrate her 90th birthday.
Myrtle Pearse, known to friends and family alike as "Myrtle the Turtle", will make a 3000-metre tandem skydive over the Taieri Aerodrome.
She will be watched by her 93-year-old sister, Mavis, who has travelled to Dunedin from her home in Cheltenham, England, for her little sister's birthday.
"Mavis thinks I'm mad. She can't understand why anyone in their right mind would want to jump out of a perfectly good plane."
But there is a method in Mrs Pearse's madness, for she is also making the jump to raise money for the Otago Community Hospice.
More than 40 people are sponsoring her 1c for every metre she falls. That works out at $30 each, when she completes the 3000m jump.
The great-grandmother became a minor southern celebrity in 2000 when she detailed her early morning swimming routine of 20 to 30 laps, three mornings a week, at the St Clair hot salt-water pool, followed by a walk on the beach, letting slip then her nickname "Myrtle the Turtle".
At the 2004 New Zealand Masters Games in Dunedin, the then 86-year-old Mrs Pearse won the 50m celebrity race and, the next year, took part in the Cancer Society's 24-hour Relay for Life.
Mrs Pearse marked her birthday on Monday night at her St Clair Park home by having few friends over for dinner.
She also made the most of the day "by getting as many birthday hugs as I could".
"I'm 90 now, so I can get away with hugging anyone I like," she said. "No one minds."
And there were no nerves from the nanogenarian yesterday. "I'm really excited about it. Why would I be nervous? I've done a parachute jump before ... back when I was 85."
Parachute Experience operator Jo Davies said Mrs Pearse, who is to become the company's oldest client, could be the oldest woman in New Zealand to strap on a parachute.
"A man in his 90s jumped in the North Island, so Myrtle could well be the oldest woman in New Zealand to skydive."
- OTAGO DAILY TIMES
