A braver man than me!

Many moons ago Rick was 'foolish' enough to mention how one of the things on his bucket list was to sky dive.  I did some research and found that thankfully only tandem drives are permitted to start with.  After much thought and more research I decided this would be his 'special birthday' gift from me.

A week after his birthday we made the booking, bearing in mind that is is now Autumn here and it has been the hottest driest summer on record.  We thought the weather would continue to be kind... but no it started raining followed by high winds and storms... oh dear.  The day arrived heralded by yet more dark clouds a down pour of rain and some fairly strong winds.  We rang the diving school who cheerfully told us that clear skies and sunshine would greet us at the airfield... really!

An hours drive later and it turned out they were right.

Rick ever cool calm and collected showed no fear... I think I was doing all the panicking for him.  The team were very young and enthusiastic but also very professional and relaxed.  Their approach to this potentially life limiting 'sport' calmed me down.

After being kitted up with a harness and matched to a Tandem Master, Rick was off to the tiny airplane and off to the blue skies they went.  After what seemed like an age to me and way above the gathering clouds we finally spotted the chutes.
They had thrown themselves out of a perfectly good aircraft at 12,000 feet and free fell for just over a minute travelling about 125 miles an hour before the chute was opened .  After a very graceful 10 minute decent and landing Rick was back on terre firma and
I was breathing again... phew!

Would he do it again - well apparently yes he would.

Rick with Travis the Tandem Master and Cullen the Cameraman

The views over Lake Alexanderina, The Murray River and Langhorne (great wine area) were spectacular.  I saw the same thing with much less of an adrenalin rush from Google Earth!

Once we had got our breath back we went and had a picnic by the side of the Murray.  It is a fantastic and much loved river.  We were treated to an aerial display from 4 very large birds possibly sparrow hawks or even kites and a beautiful old paddle steamer gently glided past.

 

It was an amazing day though not for the feint hearted but thankfully everything worked out well.  Rick's account of what happened is hysterical.  The DVD very neatly picks up his disconcertedness (is there such a word?) at stepping away from a perfectly good aircraft into oblivion.  Equally you can see he very quickly relaxes and clearly enjoyed the experience.

Rather him than me!

The rest of the week has been very tame by comparison.

Wishing you all a very happy Easter, have fun

Ooroo!