Taupo: Skydiving & Huka Falls

Ciao all,

So this is the first installment of our Taupo trip we happened to do on my birthday. We got our rental car the morning of my 21st (which let us get cheaper insurance!) and hit the road for Taupo. On the way I had a second opportunity to stop in Tirau, and got a picture with Alyse with the giant dog. It seemed to really like Alyse.
Onward and Southward, we got to downtown Taupo after 5 hours of driving (it was to be trial by fire for me with the whole driving on the left thing) and checked in to the skydiving office.
It wasn't long before we were suiting up, watching a surprisingly brief safety video while the instructor was talking to us about something else, and hopping into the plane. The plane ride was pretty short, as plane rides go, and best of all we didn't have to sit through the landing! (Landings make me nervous)
I watched as the instructors sitting behind each of us passed around oxygen tubes to each other and started 'sipping' on them. We had opted for the 15,000ft drop, and the air is a little thin up there. I was a little biffed though when we didn't get any... Oxygen, really in any business except maybe coffin making, seems like the type of thing you want the client to have enough of.
Nevertheless, we were all lucid enough to jump out of a plane, so I guess it worked out okay.
Skydiving is, in a word, incredible. Those of you who have done it know you don't really see the ground rushing up at you; it's just really windy for about a minute and then the chute opens. I think I like the chute ride the best, because the instructors let us control it for a bit, tugging hard left or right to go into tight helices. To my surprise, we landed on our feet, and ever since that point I've been wanting to go again.
After we landed we got to see our photos, most of which I posted above. The thing I like most about them is seeing my shoes... looking at their irrelevance there reminds me of how disconnected you are from the earth at that point, and how rare that is.

I know it's a little anticlimactic, but I also want to throw in the rest of the day in this post, and I like the photos.
After skydiving, still beset with adrenaline and awe, we drove to Huka Falls outside town.



They were quite impressive, and it was a fun way to cool down a bit after the craziness of the morning. Alyse, Kelly, and I hung out in the parking lot while the rest of the group did a short hike. Since I had been doing all the driving Alyse and Kelly took turns driving around in circles while I took pictures set to a slow shutter speed to make our amazingly bad ass minivan look faster.

Altogether, a pretty wacky day, not soon to be forgotten.

Okay, that should do it for today.

See y'all later!

--David