My alarm drew me from my deep slumber at 7am. "No!" I hit snooze mode. Five minutes later, my brain had woken and my heart leapt into action. Skydiving day. Get dressed, eat smoothie, get in car, pick up support friends, on the road.
Cloud hung low over Rotorua, "that cloud is too low!" One of the support friends muttered. He was jumping, like me, with Taupo Tandem Skydiving. I'm glad there was someone in the car to do the freaking out for me.
My heart was attempting to win the fastest rate possible award; my brain was trying to get it to chill. By Taupo I think the brain had won. Heart rate: normal. Breathing: happening. Park car, sign in, sit down, orientation, brain: blur mode. I should probably have been paying attention at this point, and I was trying, but 95 per cent of my energy was being pumped into not freaking out.
Stunning red suit: check, borrowed hoody from friend's little brother: check , gloves: check, weird little hat thing: check.
At this stage I met my tandem master Joel. It is quite incredible how rapidly one manages to conquer the issue of personal space when jumping out of a plane.
Efficiently and reassuringly Joel walked me through what was going to happen. Harness: check. Breathing: on the to do list.
Each pair filed into the plane, Joel and I were to jump fourth.
Being that close to a bunch of strangers in a small plane is actually rather comforting. My efforts at small talk were rather failed. .. I did find out Joel had been jumping out of planes for 10 years, and wanted to be a film maker.
Showing me his altitude watch at 8000 metres my heart stepped it up a notch. This looked high, and we were jumping from 15,000 metres. Breathing: what's that? As we climbed a little higher and I could see less of the ground my heart started to relax and my breathing returned to normal, though that could have been the oxygen mask.
The door flew open, the first pair disappeared down.
Ok, we're really doing this. The next few fell just as quickly and before I had a chance to process the height or the fact I was willingly throwing myself from a plane, we were falling through the air.
Surreal would be how I explain this part, because that is really the only way to describe it. Once the air caught us, all I could think about was as a child wanting to be able to fly so badly, now finally, I was flying!
Surprisingly I was the least nervous during the free fall; there is something incredibly freeing about being that far above the earth, and not being in anything.
Our minute of free fall was over relatively quickly, the parachute was pulled and it was a gentle float back to the earth. After a turn at steering (I managed a full circle, inducing motion sickness), the ground looked much closer than I would have liked. Looking out over Lake Taupo and the slowly greening farm land was something out of a tourism magazine - breathtaking.
Once landed I think I went into a slight state of shock, perhaps from trying so hard not to freak out I had forgotten to fill my body in on what it was about to do. Now on the ground it sunk in.
After several cups of water and a sit down I managed to comprehend the whole 'throwing yourself out of a plane' thing.
The entire way home (after eating a very big breakfast in town) I could not stop smiling. Again please I said. I was going to go travelling at the end of this year ... now I'm going to learn to sky dive solo instead.
If you're keen to give skydiving ago, talk to the team at Taupo Tandem Skydiving. Find more information at http://www.taupotandemskydiving.com/ or call 0800 TANDEM (826336).