Mama Tang’s Gonna Be Mad!

So one of the things that Cheryl and I were told by Mama Tang when we left was to be careful. Those words of advice were thrown out the door today…at 15,000 feet.

The day started off early with a 7:00 am breakfast of eggs, toast, and fruit cooked by Chef Greg in the kitchen area of the hostel. Then we were off. 15 minutes down the road and we arrived at the Rotorua airfield. Cheryl’s photographer put it best by saying, “this is probably the only time you’ll take-off in a plane and not land in the same plane.” Yup…sky diving. For this jump, we needed to wear oxygen masks during the ride up because the air gets pretty thin above 12,000 feet. Cheryl looked fine at the beginning, but as the plane climbed higher and higher, she started to look more and more nervous. She was the first one out of the plane. Finally, once at altitude, the door slid open, the camera man / videographer slipped out the door and Cheryl inched her way towards the door. Feet hanging off, one good lean and she was off…plummeting towards the earth at ~110 mph for 65 seconds.

Greg was the last one out of the plane, which was a single prop plane that only held 3 tandem jumpers (plus the camera man). Once the chutes opened, he was able to spot the other two jumpers and zero’d in on Cheryl because of her bright, turquoise shoes! He could tell that Matt (her “guide”) was having fun, spinning her around, diving, and swooping. “It was fun, until I started to get dizzy and nauseous and had to close my eyes,” said Cheryl. Greg, on the other hand, has a new opinion about French Canadians – boring. His guide was build like Lurch from the Adam’s family and was about as talkative. Free fall, open chute, land safely. The views were amazing as we looked down on Lake Rotorua, the stinkiest lake on the planet, and even saw a snow covered Mount Doom out in the distance.

Back on solid ground, we packed up and headed back for some food at the Fat Dog Café. More later…but I’d like to leave you with this quote written on the café wall: “The bulldog is a funny dog. Both ends look the same. This end is his bottom and that end is his brain. Hold on. NO, I’ve got it wrong, or have I just forgotten? That end is his head and that end is the bottom.”