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The fall from heaven

Is it a bird? Is it a plane? No, it's our travel-man!

I've had my fair share of thrills. I've bungee jumped, scuba dived, tackled grade-5 rapids, walked on a glacier and ridden across the highest mountain passes in the world, but my skydive in New Zealand remains the most spectacularly intense and thrilling activity because so many emotions raked through me in so short a time. First, excitement while getting geared up, then trepidation while in the plane, pure panic at the door moments before the jump, the heady rush of falling at 200kph and finally, the undiluted bliss of floating like a bird over one of the world's prettiest places.

If you ever get the opportunity to do this, grab it, you'll remember every moment for the rest of your life!

What novices like me can do is `tandem skydiving', where you are strapped together with a jumpmaster and with this stranger, you fling yourself out into the blue yonder.

Strangers they might be, but the jumpmasters are hardcore professionals. They know there are no second chances when gravity is pulling you down at 200kph and their margin for error is zero percent.

My jumpmaster was Sasa and he introduced me to Lee, a delicate girl with an infectious smile. She too was dressed in a jumper suit, but had a helmet that seemed to have escaped its Viking owner from way back in the 9th century. Sasa then explained that Lee was photographer and she would jump a split second before me and then the three of us would hover together through the 60 second freefall and she would shoot and click pictures of me. Her helmet was modified to accommodate mounts for her video and still camera. This picture you see was shot by Lee while falling at 200kph.

We took off and at 12000 Sasa started preparing by hooking up his suit to mine and re checking all clips clamps and harnesses.

Then the door slid open and Sasa started sliding us towards the door. In the meantime little Lee was hanging half in-half out at the door of the plane with as much nonchalance as a traveller hanging out of the general compartment of a crowded Indian train. It was an smooth move on Sasa's part that he didn't give me a moment to contemplate at the door, in a fluid movement he just chucked us out and I remember flipping over and looking up at the plane and seeing it rapidly diminish in size as if it was pulled away towards the stratosphere, then we flipped over again and Sasa released the small stabilizer chute that would control our descent.

Lee suddenly floated into my view still smiling and gesturing at me. She was asking me to imitate her so that the video would be interesting. I remember wanting to try and change my expression but the force of the wind made it so damn difficult. The three of us plummeting down at 200kmph and Lee was photographing as well as filming as we were dropping 55.5 meters per second. At this rate we dropped 3.3 km in a minute. Lee grabbed my hand and spun me around so that we had the sun behind us and I glanced below just in time to see a low cloud rush up and before I even had the chance to grimace we zipped through it.

Below, Queenstown spread out in all its finery. Blue lakes, rolling hill and snow capped peaks. A slight jerk told me that Sasa had pulled the rip cord and as the chute opened up it arrested our breakneck rate of descent. Now we were floating over the Remarkables and Queenstown's Lake Wakapitu. As we came into land Sasa told me to fold my legs up and then unfold them into a run as we hit the ground. I was still so zapped by the whole experience that I got it all wrong and we started our landing smoothly but as soon as I put my legs down it turned into a jumble of limbs as we rolled and semi cart wheeled to a stop.

This ends my series on New Zealand. It is a country that definitely warrants a visit, and no matter what kind of holiday you are looking for you'll come back content and happy. Start planning at www.newzealand.com and for some real exciting stuff visit www.queenstown-nz.co.nz and check out the skydiving options at www.nzone.biz

RISHAD SAAM MEHTA

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