12,000 feet

That's how high the plane was when I jumped today. Or, more accurately, how high my skydiving instructor Greg jumped while I was attached to him. Wow, that was an experience unlike anything I've encountered before. Not something that can really be put into words, but I'll give it a go - 8 of us (4 instructors, 4 newbies) plus the pilot go up in a small airplane that's really not much bigger than a suburban, get up to the desired altitude, strap ourselves to the instructor's front, then basically dangle ourselves out the hatch and wait for the instructor to jump. I experienced what seemed like about 5 seconds of sheer terror as my face hit a wall of air and the ground approached sickeningly fast, before my mind took over from my animal instincts and realized that, wait, this was all part of the plan. I laughed for a bit and enjoyed the descent. Supposedly it was about 45 seconds of freefall before the chute opened, but it really felt to me like maybe about 15 seconds. The parachute part to me was even cooler, as I could look around Lake Taupo, and all the volcanoes southward and westward. Of course, that's when I started experiencing a bit of motion sickness, as Greg started teaching me how to steer the parachute - spinny spinny spinny. I avoided making pavement pizza from 1000 feet up, however. A few minutes later, we landed, which was really much smoother than I thought it would be, a nice standing up landing (before I collapsed a second later due to dizziness). Not something I will probably be doing again anytime soon, but really glad I had that experience.

Oh, right, what came before:
Had a couple of sweet-as days in Wellington once Tadhog arrived. Was quite ready to end the solo portion of my trip, though it rocked the house while it lasted. We enjoyed the Wellington nightlife, exploring some bands, some hiking trails through various parks, and the Te Papa museum, the finest one I've seen in NZ yet.

From there, we made our way north to Napier, stopping in Martinborough to do some wine tasting (I spat most of mine since I was driving), having a nice little luncheon there. Napier was a good point of interest - in 1931 there was a devastating earthquake which basically flattened the town and caused about 40 square kilometers that was previously below sea level to rise above sea level. That latter effect actually wound up being a gain for Napier, as it gave the town much more room to expland. New buildings that went up to replace the old for the next 15-20 years or so were all built in the Art Deco style, making it one of the largest collections of Art Deco buildings on the planet (I think there's somewhere in Florida that might be a little larger). Cool place to walk around and relax. Tadhog and I also went on another wine tour (Napier's in yet another big wine region) aboard bikes (or push-bikes, in the local vernacular). While we didn't finish in record time (you know, you get distracted by good wine and beer and conversation), it was a grand old time.

Yesterday, arrived in Taupo, which is nestled by the lake of the same name, which is NZ's biggest lake. It's actually the caldera of a huge volcano, which last erupted in 186 AD. It blew out so much ash that Chinese and Romans at the time noticed the sky going red. So yeah, if it happens to go while we're in NZ, we're pretty screwed. But it's a nice town.

Tomorrow, going to investigate a local hot spring and waterfall, as well as have lunch with Sally, one of the ladies I hiked the Queen Charlotte Track with. After that, will head down to Tongariro National Park. Unfortunately, it's gotten way too cold and icy to do the Alpine Crossing without a pickaxe/crampons and a guide (which costs too much for my liking), which I was really looking forward to doing. But there's some lower-elevation hikes we can do, and we'll get to see Ruapehu and Ngaruhoe (Mt. Doom) up pretty close. After that, we're going to book it up north where it hopefully will get warmer. It's getting pretty cold in NZ - so much for my notions that it would be like San Francisco in the winter!