Beautiful Taupō Lake

Taupō was one of the cities I liked best. It is comfortably located in the center of the North Island at the huge Lake Taupō, which was formed many many years ago as a result of a gigantic volcanic eruption. I also liked my cosy hostel, the Haka Lodge, a lot. It even had its own garden.

Taupō is known as the capital of skydiving, as countless daredevils jump from thousands of meters into the depths. For a long time I had considered to try it. Besides, I had just celebrated my 30th birthday. Whereby "celebrated" is the wrong expression, because I couldn't really celebrate. The antibiotics I had to take because of an infected insect bite prevented me from doing so. A parachute jump seemed like a good way to compensate.

Getting picked up by limousine

It was a bright blue sky and I was relaxing a bit at the beautiful Lake Taupō.  So I simply called one of the two parachute companies, Taupō Tandem Skydiving, and asked if I could jump right away. "No problem", they said and added "we can pick you up in an hour". Less than 3 hours later they dropped me back at my hostel and I had completed my first skydive.

But first from the beginning: One hour after my call I was picked up in a nice limousine. In the fancy car I was welcomed by 3 nice British and 2 Germans, who wanted to jump as well. They drove us to a small airport not far from the city. First it was time to pay, the whole thing cost me about 257 €. If you jump from an even higher altitude, it gets even more expensive! I paid for a jump from 12,000 ft (almost 3700 meters) including a selfievideo (this alone cost me about 75€).

2 minute introduction video

And then it already started. They showed us an ultra short 2 minute video on how to behave in the air and how to stretch out the arms. And then we already slipped into the yellow overall and the safety belt, to which the tandem partner later straps himself.  My tandem partner was a funny Brit, who even spoke a little German. Afterwards we had to wait a little bit until it was our turn and then we already entered the small machine. The small propeller machine made a tremendous noise.  About 15 jumpers were sitting close together. My nervousness fell and my excitement soared.

Free fallin' (for a few seconds)

Then everything went very fast! Not much time to think about it any longer. I was directly second to jump. The moment when you stand at the edge of the airplane door is just indescribable. The adrenaline brings the pulse up to 180. A short grin into the camera and then the tandem partner pushed us out.  You don't have to do anything and you are already flying through the air. It took my brain a few seconds to realize what was going on. You rush towards the earth in free fall at 200 km/h. Unlike on a roller coaster, you don't feel your body weight. You virtually float through the air.  From up here everything looks like a flat disk. That's why skydiving is no problem even for people who are afraid of heights, because you are so far up that the body can't really realize the height.

What an adrenalin rush!

The cold air blows on your face with full force, causing your face to wrinkle and your veins to pop out. I spread out my arms and folded my lower legs upwards, as I was told, and enjoyed the free fall for a short time.  I tried to stare into the camera as cool as possible. After a few seconds the fun was already over and the tandem partner made a finger signal to me that he would open the parachute in 3 seconds. With a huge jerk he finally pulled the line and the parachute opened. We braked harshly and it felt like we were being catapulted back into the air.  I didn't like the abrupt movements after the parachute opened and I was glad that we came back down again. Hours later the adrenalin was still rushing through my blood and I couldn't sleep at all that night. I recommend everyone to jump a parachute at least once in their life, because it is an incredibly awesome and indescribable feeling.