Day 8

Well, today I bowed to peer pressure. Our fearless leader Steve talked me into signing up for tandem skydiving. Now, I have absolutely no problem with heights or controlled descents like rappelling or such, but I have a deathly fear of falling. The hardest parts of the canyoning and caving were the parts when I had to jump off cliffs (even very small cliffs) into water. So why I agreed to jump out of a plane from 12 000 feet I have no idea. We got picked up at 8:10 for the drive to the Taupo airport and Taupo Tandem Skydive. I was pretty terrified but determined to face my fear of falling. I was paired with a German tandem master called Albert and asked him to take it easy on me because I was so scared. We got in the plane with Sarah W, Kieran, and Sarah M and were flown up to 12 000 feet (Ronnie went up higher to 15 000 feet, crazy man). Albert was really good about reassuring me all the way up, even though that part didn't scare me. Once we got to 12 000 feet the door opened and all the people in front of me started disappearing out the door. Finally it was our turn and after a quick exit photo we were out.



Since I wasn't the one making the decision to scoot off the edge of the plane we actually did fall out. After a very brief moment of terror, I was fine. You're so high up that there are no real points of reference to tell you that you're falling to your death. The ground is so far away that it does not feel like an immediate threat and it feels like you're floating, even though you're going at about 200 kilometres per hour. We fell 7 thousand feet in about 45 seconds. At 5 thousand feet Albert deployed the parachute and we were suddenly jerked upright. At this point my left ear popped really badly. We were floating down over Lake Taupo, the largest lake in New Zealand. It was gorgeous. Albert scared the crap out of me by undoing one buckle and loosening the harness - I thought he was going to drop me! Thankfully, I think it was just for comfort. We did some spins and banks and took all the scenery in. We came down fast at the end and did a nice three point landing (his feet and my butt). It was so much more fun than I expected and not at all as scary. There are photos, but I'll have to get them off Norrie at the end of trip to post.

After skydiving the group picked us up and we headed out to River Valley Adventure Lodge. We stopped for lunch just outside of Taurangi at a place called Licorice Cafe (yes, they sold lots of licorice). I had a bacon, brie, and avocado phyllo packet and a "melting moment" - two shortbread cookies sandwiching a passionfruit icing filling. I took a nap in the van (I keep falling asleep in this van - it's like the magic bus in Israel) and woke up when two stupid sheep wandered across the road in front of the van and startled us all. Along the way we passed the mountain that was Mt. Doom in the Lord of the Rings movie. Very cool.

Down a very narrow winding gravel mountain road is the River Valley Adventure Lodge.



A bit of a mix-up about who was horseback riding and who was white-water rafting led to only half of the horse trekkers going this evening, and the rest of us are going to go tomorrow morning. Instead, Sarah, Susan, Norrie, Ronnie, Joe, Fran and I went up to a homemade 9-hole golf course (pitch and putt - a really small golf course, but not mini-golf). We had to dodge sheep dung and play across the road and had an audience of somewhat curious sheep. It was a lot of fun. I did okay for a complete first-timer, but still came in dead last in our little foursome of Susan, Ronnie, Norrie, and me. Norrie smoked us all.







Afterwards I worked on some postcards (yes, some of you will be getting postcards) and then went for roast dinner in the lodge. We had roast chicken, potatoes, and pumpkin (pumpkins have green skin here!) as well as stuffing and gravy and cranberry sauce. Spent some time chatting and then off to bed.