The Geographer goes exploring.

A few people have been asking me when I am going to update my blog and write about my Skydive. Well here it is... the story of what I hope will be the first of many skydives.

That’s right. I actually did it. The girl with a fear of flying flew up to 12,000 ft and jumped out of the plane. I can honestly say it was one of the most exhilarating and exciting things I have ever done.

First things first.... How did I end up skydiving? I will be honest, it’s not something I have always wanted to do, mostly because of the fear of flying. However I found myself at the Franz Josef Glacier in New Zealand with a couple of days to spare. As a geographer I decided it would be outrageous for me to be so close to both the Fox and Franz Josef Glaciers and not take full advantage of exploring them. I had decided I would take a Glacier hike so I went off to find some information about the hikes. Turned out the hikes were a full day and involved a lot of walking up some steep slopes..... After several weeks on the road I was feeling pretty exhausted and had a rather horrible blister on my foot from hiking the previous two days. I was debating whether I had enough energy to go on the hike when I turned round and saw it – A sign. ‘Skydive fox glacier. 30 minute scenic flight over Mt. Cook, then jump out of the plane at 12,000ft. The world’s 2nd most scenic skydive’.

For about 30 seconds I had one of those little debates with myself about whether this was a good idea “Wow, I can see the glacier from above”..... “But I hate flying and heights, I will hate it”..... “I only live once. If it all goes wrong and I die I will have at experienced skydiving and there are worse ways to go than being splattered against Mt. Cook. At least the last view I see would be beautiful and my death would be related to Geography”.

It was decided. I went to the counter and about 10 minutes after entering the shop I had made a rather spontaneous decision and booked my first skydive – purely because I was feeling to lazy to walk up the glacier.
I had booked for the following day and was going to be picked up at 11am. Surprisingly I was not nervous at all. I spent the rest of the day exploring the town of Franz Josef.

Before I went to bed I called home. I told my mum I was going skydiving. She didn’t believe me. Her response was “OK, have fun”. Before I left home in November I don’t think anyone (even me) would believe me if I said I was going to go skydiving.
I slept really well and woke up the following day feeling excited about my upcoming fall from the skies. I was quite surprised that I still did not feel nervous. 10.45am came and I went outside to meet my pick up. I was still not nervous. It was an absolutely amazingly clear and sunny day. I took this as a sign that I was supposed to skydive that day.

I arrived at the site where I met another girl who was from Germany and would be jumping from the same plane as me. We were suited up in some rather unflattering all in one suits and given a quick safety talk. I had opted to buy a video, no one would believe I did it otherwise, so a few seconds were filmed in front of the plane.
I was doing a tandem jump, so I would be connected to the instructor at 4 points. The instructor got in the plane and I got in after him and sat on his knee. This would have been awesome if he were about 30 years younger and a little less grey and wrinkly. Nonetheless I decided that perhaps with skydiving experience beats looks.
Once we were all in the plane the propellers started spinning and we sped down the little dirt runway and up into the air. It was at this point I started to feel nervous. Not about my impending skydive, but about the fact I was in a plane. It didn’t take me long to forget I was on a plane. The scenery was stunning. We spent 30 minutes flying round the Southern Alps. I could see the Franz Josef and Fox Glaciers, Mt. Cook and the Tasman Sea.

Eventually we reached 12,000ft . The door opened and for a second I was filled with a sudden sense of panic. In fact on the video you can see my face suddenly change and pinpoint the exact moment when I started freaking out. I believe you can also see me saying the words “Oh Fuck” a couple of times. I calmed myself down by telling myself “It’s too late now, the only way back down is to jump. Just get on with it and do it.
Dying skydiving is much more interesting than dyeing from being hit by a bus”. I was the second of two to jump and I decided the best tactic would be to just relax, close my eyes and let the instructor manoeuvre us out of the plane. We got to the edge where I had to do ‘The banana’. This is how you exit the plane. You have to cross your arms over your chest, lean your head back and bend your legs so you are sort of in an arched position. I did the banana (with my eyes still closed).

“SHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIT” I opened my eyes out of pure shock. I was falling. Oh my god. I’m going to vom. I hate it. Get me down. This sensation probably lasted for only about half a second. Watching the video I believe I have figured out why this was - we left the plane and then started plummeting head first towards the ground! Pretty quickly we moved and were going parallel to the ground. This was much better. We slowed a little due to wind resistance and I no longer felt like I was going to vom. I had a 45 second freefall which went incredibly quickly. Then there was a bit of a jolt, the parachute opened (much to my relief) and we floated gently back to the ground. It was a truly amazing experience.

There was the exhilaration and adrenaline from jumping out of the plane, followed by the peacefulness and serenity after the parachute had opened and we drifted back to Earth. It was one of those moments where I looked at what I could see and I was reminded of how beautiful the world is.

I never thought I would skydive, but I am so glad I did. Over the last few months I appear to have gained a new way of thinking – If fate or god or who/what ever is in charge decides I’m going to shuffle off this mortal coil, then that is what will happen. I should make the most of every opportunity that is thrown my way. As cliché as it is, the saying “you only live once” is incredibly true.

Next stop base jumping from the top of Half Dome in Yosemite National Park.... Anyone with me??

After my few days recuperating in Sydney it was time to meet the next group of people I would be travelling with. We were going spend 21 days travelling overland from Sydney to Cairns. I woke up on the morning of our departure not quite sure what to expect. I was pretty tired after the last trip, and there was a part of me that quite liked the idea of staying in Sydney by myself. I went to meet with my fellow travellers. We hit the road and began our journey.
As we left Sydney I wondered if I was making the right choice, did I really want to spend the next three weeks travelling in a group? After all travelling is often easier when you go it alone and only have yourself to please. Fortunately I quite quickly learnt that I was not just travelling with any old group of people. These were actually some of the funniest people I had come across, and from a few days in I would pretty much start laughing at breakfast time, and still be laughing when I went to bed.
There were six of us to start with, and on one of our first few nights we sat around and decided who was going to be in charge of which task. We nominated a mechanic, a wood collector, someone to be in charge of water and an accountant to look after the food kitty. Jobs were generally allocated on what people’s careers were at home. When it came to allocating me a job, it was suggested that perhaps I should be in charge of reading maps as I am a Geographer. I quickly pointed out that personally I think Geographers have a worse sense of direction than anyone else (or perhaps that’s just me). After a few minutes of discussion it was decided that I was recently a student, therefore probably unreliable and should not be trusted with anything. Personally I think I got the best deal

Over the last few weeks in Australia I have discovered it contains many big things. I suppose Australia is a giant Island.
Australian’s appear to be obsessed with making enormous replicas of random objects. These, more often than not, are placed next to a cafe or gift shop to try and attract customers.
One Australian once told me that there are many older Australians who choose to retire, pack up their camper vans and spend some of their hard earned life savings (or their children’s inheritance) looking for the ‘big things’. I think this has gone on my ambitions list. When I am old and retired (Yes I DO realise I have to find a career to retire from!) I plan to take a tour round Australia viewing every single one of their big things. It became my mission to see as many big things as possible while I was gracing the Island of Australia. Apparently there are over 50 scattered all over Australia, and unfortunately I was unable to see them all. Nonetheless, I was privileged enough to witness the following: The Big Koala, The Big Banana, The Big Mango, The Big Prawn, The Big Gumboot with Frog, The Big floods, The Big Rattlesnake and Big Al (the guys I was travelling with will understand this one).......

My blogging commitment is clearly beginning to slip! Since I last posted, New Years Eve has been and gone. Perhaps I should consider making ‘adding to my blog regularly’ my New Year’s resolution. However I think once I get to Fiji my blogging activities will decline further, as I have no electricity or internet at my placement.

A few weeks ago, I did decide that I was going to write my blog more often. I decided this, because while I was walking round Sydney I had ventured into a bookshop where I had come across a copy of ‘the lonely planet’s guide to travel writing’ “Wow” I thought. “I could buy that book, become an expert travel writer and get paid to travel.” I continued thinking in the fashion for several minutes, until I turned the book over saw the $35 price tag and got a bit of a reality check! $35 is about £25 or as I have started to think of things, about 2 and a half days of food (Australian food is expensive). I decided that perhaps I was not committed enough to become a travel writer (look at how often I blog) and perhaps, after all the money would be much better spent of food.

Anyway, enough about my failure to blog and future career plans. I guess I should tell you about what I have been up to in the last few weeks. When I left you I had just arrived in Sydney after spending 14 days travelling overland from Alice Springs (the exact centre of Australia). On my arrival in Sydney I was a little disappointed. On the plane over to Australia I had been informed that in Sydney it rains on average for only 23 days a year. That should mean that there are 342 days a year where there is no rain in Sydney. Two weeks previous I had arrived in Sydney and the rain was pouring. I left the following day and it was still pouring. Now here I was, back again, and guess what? Yes that’s right – it was pissing down with rain. Anyway, rain or no rain I had planned four much needed recovery days in Sydney before meeting the next group of people who I was going to travel up the East Coast with. I say much needed recovery days, because surprisingly sometimes travelling can be hard work. I have told people this before and the general reaction I get is “what on Earth are you talking about; you’re just on an extended holiday”. I sometimes wonder if people think I spend the entire time I am travelling sat on a beach and staying in nice hotels. But no, unfortunately the reality is somewhat different. I have had very few trips (in fact I don’t think I have had any) where I have spent weeks sat on a beach. The reason that travelling is hard work is because you have to pretty much constantly be thinking about where you are staying next? How you are going to get there? What will it cost? If you stay in this place for x number of days can you then afford food for the rest of the trip? Not only do you have to figure out all this stuff, you also have to constantly move around the 20KGs on your back that is currently your life in a bag. On top of this, accommodation is mostly in hostels. This means you get to share your room with on average, seven other people! It is more than likely you are going to get woken up by someone going to bed later than you, kept awake by someone else’s snoring and then woken early the following morning when people get up. Before arriving in Sydney, I had had about 5 days of early starts. By early starts I mean before 7am, and a few of them were before 6. So it had all added up, I was feeling slightly exhausted and I was more than a little relieved to be getting to Sydney where I imagined I could spend a few days relaxing before the next adventure began.

As it happened, because I am so fantastically organised I had pre booked some accommodation. I was arriving in Sydney on the Saturday, Staying until Tuesday and I had booked accommodation at the same place for Saturday and Monday nights. Yes that’s right. I had booked accommodation for 2/4 nights and for some reason completely disregarded the two days in the middle. I arrived at where I was staying; crossing my fingers they would be able to fit me in for the middle two nights. But no! So my first day of relaxation in Sydney was spent trying to find myself accommodation for the following two days. When I finally found somewhere to stay I had to drag my 20kgs (plus hand luggage and food) across the city on a lovely sunny day when the temperature was about 28 °C. My trek was not aided by the fact that I began navigating the city of Sydney using a map of somewhere else.
Eventually, albeit rather tired and hot, I made it. I was now staying in the hostel that I had booked myself into for the week over New Years. I found out that they had long term luggage storage and relished the opportunity to dump my 65L pack along with half of my belongings. I acquired a 40L pack from someone I had previously been travelling with who was heading home, packed it up and was ready to go.

The following day I got up bright and early, moved accommodation and then decided to use Sydney’s bus network to see the area. The first place I choose to go was Bondi Beach. Before venturing into Australia I had heard a great deal about Bondi, and actually it was definitely not a disappointment. I arrived at Bondi to glorious sunshine. This was much appreciated as weather wise; all I had seen in Sydney thus far was rain. Bondi had golden sand and water that was turquoise blue and looked exceptionally inviting. I was just about to rip of my clothes and dive in when suddenly a thought crossed my mind. “Australia. Sharks. That inviting turquoise blue water over there is basically a shark restaurant. By getting in it I am effectively putting myself on the shark brunch menu”. I can safely say I rather swiftly put my clothes back on and decided instead that I would take the bus down to Darling Harbour where I could venture into the aquarium and view the fish knowing that the sharks were contained behind rather thick glass and therefore unable to nibble on my extremities. It turned out that the aquarium was $35 which is far too much for a stingy backpacker like myself to pay for a few hours entertainment. Instead I walked up to Hyde park, found myself a nice little shaded spot under a tree and sat and people watched for the afternoon.

We headed North East towards ‘The Blue Mountains’ or as I prefer to call them ‘The Grey rolling hills’ As I said previously, Australia’s national parks really don’t appear to be that spectacular and the Blue Mountains were no different. The Blue Mountains were given their name because apparently they can appear to have blue haze. This is due to large amounts of Eucalyptus oil being released from the thousands of Eucalyptus trees that cover the mountains. When I visited them they were certainly not blue. In fact I couldn’t really see the mountains at all. All I could see was the thick cloud and fog in front of me.

We began our hike at 8.30 in the morning when the temperature was cold and the rain was pouring. The plan was to hike through the Blue Mountains and then get the ‘world’s steepest railway’ back up to the car park we were parked in. The hike began with a walk down ‘The giants Stairway’ this consisted of over 800 rather steep steps. After walking down the steps we continued walking for another few kilometres. I can’t really tell you were we were walking as all I could see was cloud and fog! Eventually we reached the railway.

As we were waiting for the train I felt something bite my leg. I looked down to see a black worm like creature standing upright on my leg. It looked like it was burrowing into my skin. Having spent much of my childhood, and a large proportion of my adult life in streams, rivers and lakes, you would expect that I had seen a leech before. However this was a totally new and alien experience to me. So I responded with grace and decorum and ran over to two of the people I was travelling with screaming “there’s something on my leg, Help its eating my leg, Get it off, Get it off!” One of them tried to grab it, but the leech was moving so much she could not grasp it. “Oh shit” I thought. “All the interesting ways to die and I am going to be eaten by a leech”. A few seconds later someone obtained a tissue from somewhere and the leech was removed from my leg. I was later informed that one cannot die from being eaten by a leech, when they are full of blood the leech will drop of. Or if necessary they can be killed with salt. I survived my first leech attack and got on what claims to be ‘the world’s steepest railway’. This was pretty steep, however all I could really think about was my recent leech trauma. I was rather relieved when I reached the safety of the leech less van.