Queenstown from Above

This morning was nice and sunny and I went to meet the paragliding people at 9. I was so nervous! The girl that met me was baout my age and from Edinburgh so we were having a good old chat about her working over here and about my fears of jumping off a mountain!

In the van we picked up two other american girls who were also paragliding. We headed out to Coronet Peak which is a ski field and where they do the paraglides from! We picked up a couple of paraglide people who would be jumping with us!

Up at the Peak we went cautiously over to the edge where we were expected to run off! It wasn't too bad! There were also some hangliders getting ready to go as well! Dan was my partner and I opted for a $20 option where I get digital pictures and some film on DVD!

I got harnessed up and Dan was explaining all the ins and outs of glidling through the air with some material holding you up! I was very nervous but Dan was really cool and said that when we were up it would be fine!

And then it was time! I started to walk forward and the parachute pulled me back as the wind caught it! I managed to keep walking and within 2 steps we were up! I didn't really need to go near the edge at all and there was no running involved! It was so easy!

Up in the air I was laughing like a lunatic, it was brilliant! I also took my camera up so I was snapping away and Dan was doing some photos with a telescopic pole! It was so amazing just sat there in the air. It was so comfortable as well. Just like being sat in an armchair! Dan let me do some steering holding onto the levers and then at the end we did some twists and turns which were really fun!

Landing we came in on our bottoms and it was funny cos I ended up all curled up in the harness! I helped Dan out putting the parachute away and he showed me the photos on his camera!

When we drove back into town I decided that I'd better not spend too much more money so I went to the internet cafe for a bit, called mum to tell her about my amazing flight! I then went and sat in the lounge at the hostel. It's a really nice lounge as it has a window wall that looks out over the lake! Whilst I was in there a lad and his family came in. They had a portable DVD player and he had just been paragliding from the gondola so he was looking at his photos. They let me look at mine as well! It was so funny seeing them larger on the telly! You can really tell that I was loving it!

That afternoon I went for a walk around town and got a Subway for dinner!

I spent the evening in my dorm with my dorm mates watching Bandits on the telly!