East Coast and Skydive!

Day 173

"Fear and panic in the air
I want to be free
From desolation and despair
And I feel like everything I saw
Is being swept away
When I refuse to let you go"

There is nothing like feeling when jumping out of an airplane at 15000ft.

...but let's rewind the clock a bit first, back to East Coast. Last update was written in Whakatane, Bay Of Plenty. From there road led through magnificient gorge all the way to East Coast and Gisborne. Bus trip was exciting in a way, trip was "only" 150km but it still took almost 3 hours because roads were so narrow, hilly and windy. Few people were actually puking in the bus cause of motion sickness. Me...I'm solid as a rock :)

So my first stop in East Coast was Gisborne, the most eastern city in entire world and so the first city in world so see sunlight.

Gisborne area has also lot of Chardonnay fields and 3rd of all Chardonnay's in New Zealand are grown around Gisborne area. So my plan was to take a wine tour and get familiar with Gisborne Chardonnay's. Well, that idea was scrapped because Gisborne is not a tourist town, not by long shot. I arrived to Information Center and asked wheter there are any wine tours going and lady there looked at me with amazement:"Wine tours...hey, Kathy! Can anyone take this gentleman into a wine tour? Is your brother doing anything today?" Ok...at that point I just told them to forget it. So only thing to do was to explore the city a bit.

Hmm less is said about Gisborne the better. City wasn't very nice, it didn't really have anything to hold attention. Captain Cook's lookout hill was ok, but that was it.

So I just sat at hostel, read a book and got good nights sleep.

Next stop for me was Napier, the main hub of Hawkes Bay wine area. I was told that Napier is much more touristy place and booking a wine tour there shouldn't be a problem. Other than wines, Napier is also famous for it's art deco architecture. Most of the houses in town center were built 50-60 years ago and still maintain this art deco style.

Compared to Gisborne, Napier was heaps better place. Much more lively, better designed and overall prettier. My hostel was also awesome, built in old 1930-style art deco house. As I was told, booking a wine tour wasn't a problem here, after looking at the options I chose a guy who had been running wine tours in that area for 16 years, figured that he could tell more about wines there than other guides.

So next day it was wine tour...and oh boy what mess I managed to make within 15 minutes in his bus. It all started with sports, guy was praising how great game rugby is and asked us what did we think about it. Well, me being me I spat out my honest opinion. My reply was something like this:

"Well, I have tried to get it, I really have. I have watched several games...but there is just no skill in rugby. It's 2 teams banging their heads against each other for over an hour and thats it. No skill or talent whatsoever."

Hehe that reply got him visibly angry. He asked what sport did I like then and I replied soccer. After that he gave us 30 minute lecture why soccer sucks...and at that point I just decided to be quiet and not drag it any further. Guy was clearly upset that I "insulted" their national sport and couldn't understand that there are people who just don't have same opinions.

Anyway, other peeps in the bus felt kinda same as I did and came to me at the first winery saying that the guide shouldn't have gotten so upset, he is tour guide after all and they should check their temper. So all in all, tour guide managed to alienate himself from the group, but we as group got tighter and rest of the tour was nice with lots of laughs especially after 2nd or 3rd winery :) Oh, and gorgeous wineries they were.

So yesterday morning I left Napier towards Taupo. I had booked my skydive the next day but as I arrived to hostel and told about my plans they asked if I wanted to do skydive same day since weather was better that day. "Sure. Why not?", I replied and 30 minutes later I was in minibus heading to airfield. Nice, didn't even have time to get nervous.

Hour later we were all geared up, I was hooked into my brazilian jumpmaster named Jonathan and in the plane. It was only at this point that I realised what the hell was I doing. I was up in the air inside this pitiful little aircraft and only way down was jumping off from it. All the while we were up I tried to put up my best Arnold impression, german accent and kept repeating "Get Down!" every time someone ahead of me was jumping. Apart from one german jumpmaster...others didn't get it :-/

Wow, just wow! The first 5 seconds after jumping from the plane are undescribable. Its like...brain tells you that this your end, you just jumped from plane that was 5km high in the air towards nothing, but still you feel more alive than ever. It's impossible not to love it. Jumping from 5km also ment 1min freefall which was...propably best minute I have ever had in my life. Feeling was just insane.

As I was expecting, only part I didn't quite enjoy was the parachute part. After jumpmaster gave me the ropes which to guide the parachute I felt more comfortable. Coming down with parachute took several minutes so he tauhgt me how to use the ropes which was pretty cool.

Hmmm, intenet time is ending...too much to write and too little time.

So today I'm just chilling around in Taupo...and really, really, really looking forward to seeing first 2 familiar faces from back home for the first time in nearly 6 months :)