happy medium

On the way to New Zealand Mum and Bro stopped over in Singapore for a couple of nights at the end of October. They visited downtown, raffles hotel and the night zoo:

Loads of great photos from the 3 weeks spend around the country with mum and bro to post up on happy over the coming weeks. So much infact going to take me a little while to sort out, but I had to post these now. Queenstown is one of the most stunning places I’ve had the pleasure of spending time in, and was a joy (as well as terrifying) to skydive in. It’s an incredible feeling

I smile, while brain tells me this probably isn’t such a good idea. To my left is a clear pespex door, so I’ve watched us get higher and higher, until someone presses a button and the door swings open…

You too can have a face as stupid and dumbfounded as this if you decide to jump out of an airplane.

This is the part where things get slightly mental. You hang outside from the airplane while the guy holds onto it, 3,2,1…

Your stomach rushes up, similar to being on the big-dipper on a rollercoaster, but keeps going way longer until you finally reach terminal velocity

Clouds coming up…

and then out the other end, the ground looks a lot closer now. The remarkables mountain range is just out of shot, and at about 6,000ft tall, you actually pull the chute below them.

That’s Lake Wakitpu with Queenstown off to the right. About to pull the chute. Interesting thing about parachutes – takes the guy 15 minutes to pack his own chute, but takes minimum of 4 hours to pack the reserve which has to by someone licensed to. Out of the 15 or so parachuters here, only 1 has a license to do so.

Landing. Going down with the parachute is the only time you feel a bit air sick. The guy who took all the other shots actually took this one too. When they jump solo they get to the ground a lot quicker.

On a high here which lasted for days after…

Had a great time in the Northlands with Mum and Bro despite a bit of dodgy weather. Off to Queenstown tomorrow!

A preview: