Diving Over the Hills and Far Away

What's in a name? Juliet figured a rose would still smell sweet if it was called a moist scuzzfart, and I guess it would, but words tell us a whole lot. Language is one of the most fundamentally human things we've got going, and if you break down communication into the words that people use, you've really got something. Take the word “falling.” Its place in our rhetoric is almost exclusively metaphoric – you trip and you fall, that's real, but that's just one side to the story. Really, falling is a complete loss of control – you fall asleep, you fall in love, you fall from grace. The idea of not being the master of our own affairs is something we're not usually comfortable dealing with, and I think that's why that word has imbued itself into our language subconscious.

Follow the breadcrumbs back from the metaphor to the physical reality. Whether the chicken or the egg came first is irrelevant – the idea and the truth are linked together, so that I've never believed it's hitting the ground that scares people. It's the idea of falling, of succumbing to whatever may be.

When I jumped with a bungy strapped around my ankles, I fell through a gorge for 7 seconds, body totally at the whim of gravity. And it was a rush unlike anything I'd experienced before, a surefire way to get over the fear of falling. But it's all a bit of a blur of adrenaline and whizzing colours – to face falling head on, you need to go higher. The 134 m platform suspended over the Nevis Gorge is a dot, looking down from a tiny plane some 3,600 m in the air. That's 12,000 feet, 3.6 km – and, strapped onto some dude who's holding the ripcord of a parachute, it's 45 seconds of falling in a suspended moment of reality that rushes by at 200 km an hour.

It was a deadly Wednesday afternoon that I filled the tank of my borrowed Corolla, bought a new pair of sunglasses (the almost-definitely counterfeit shades I picked up from a stall in southern Spain went missing last week, after serving me well on both ends of this earth), grabbed Elton, Alanis, and The 4 of Us, and set off through Arthur's Pass, back to the West Coast. Destination: that bushplane zooming above Fox Glacier.

The trip through the mountains took a few hours – the peaks and valleys had a fresh new coating of snow since the last time I drove the scenic route, so that even when the road crews stopped you on a narrow winding road up a mountainside, you had plenty to gawk at.

By the time I made it to the junction flanking the Tasman Sea, the sky was the colour of a lullaby and the fading light caught whisps of woodsmoke. I drove south longer than I'd planned, looking for a place to set up camp for the nigh. Through Hokitika, the historic goldtown of Ross, and finally to a patch of gravel alongside Lake Ianthe, where I reclined the seat and opened up my sleeping bag.

In no way is sleeping in a car comfortable. Truth be told, it's excruciating – I've got a Top 5 Worst Sleeps list, and this one doesn't quite rank up, but deserves honourable mention. But these kind of shenanigans are kind of part of it. Remember in “Blaze of Glory” where Jon Bon Jovi plays his guitar on a cliff in the desert and says he's “got an old coat for a pillow, and the earth is last night's bed,” and you dully accept the fact that you'll probably never, ever be that cool? Yeah, that always bugged me, too.

I was up and on the go by 7:00 the next morning, rearranging my cramped quarters by getting all the seats vertical again. There was a light morning mist settled over the water and the shallow dips in the land, and as I drove the rest of the way to Fox Glacier, the sun burst to brilliant life and cleared all the haze out of the air. I stopped in Franz Josef for pancakes and coffee, and by the time I pulled into Fox Glacier (don't blink or you'll drive right through it), the sky was as clear as a baby's complexion.

I almost feel bad. The West Coast of New Zealand is notorious for rain, the leafy green trees a testament to the fact that this really is one of the wettest places on earth. The day I drove through Fox Glacier, northbound from Queenstown, I had picked up a hitchhiker who was skydiving from Fox Glacier. I remember being tempted to go up in the plane with her, because the cards were aligned in a way I could never imagine happening again: being alongside the view of views, the sun the only thing in the big blue sky. I figured I had let the opportunity completely slip through my fingers, but sure enough, a month later, I'm back there again and lightning strikes twice. Actually, this time might have been even better – it's winter now, and Mt. Cook and the surrounding summits look a lot frostier now.

How was I feeling? The night before I did my bungy jump, I was a bit jittery, because I could visualize that height and that gut feeling, standing on the edge looking down. This time, I couldn't – I really believed that the free fall from a plane was more about a thrilling experience than about overcoming a fear. I had been looking forward to skydiving, way back when I was in my bedroom on Freshwater Road in St. John's, so this morning had that surreal feeling of something significant finally happening. You build it up in your mind so that you can't believe it actually exists outside of an idea in your head – I wouldn't have wanted to do this jump anywhere else on earth, on any other day. It was supposed to be that Thursday in June.

So, I wasn't nervous. I was really, legitimately excited.

Fox Glacier Skydive has been doing this up-and-down racket since 1997 from a tiny airstrip in the heart of the village (again, don't blink, or you'll drive right by it). When I checked in, two French guys were already wearing their red one-piece jumpsuits and helmets that would cover your ears from the slices razors of the wind but probably wouldn't be a lifesaver if your parachute didn't deploy. The tiny plane can take seven people up in the air (that includes the pilot and the instructors, who ride tandem), so we had a full load.

As I wriggled into the jumpsuit and then the harness, I met Ben, the ex-army parachutist whose hands I was putting my life into. Don't piss off the guy who opens the parachute – you don't want him to decide halfway down that he's looking for a major career change. The skydive is tandem, so you're good and strapped into someone who knows what they're doing, right from when you get in the back of the plane and sit on their lap.

After a safety briefing explaining the way to shape your body like a banana during the plummet to earth, the propellers were churning and we were off, down the runway and up in the sky.

I think it was somewhere around 6,000 feet, climbing alongside the massive, snowy peak of Aoraki/Mount Cook (in the company of its nearly-as-high friends) and looking down on the grey ribbon flowing from the Fox Glacier into the the arc of the Tasman Sea, that I remembered all the times people had told me bungy jumping was much scarier than skydiving, because the depth of the bungy is an obvious safety threat, whereas when you're in a plane your brain doesn't see the things you're looking at as real. I saw all those relaxed faces in my mind as a blur, and was left with another thought: what a crock of absolute horseshit that was. 

In what universe is jumping from a moving aircraft 12,000 feet above solid earth not a big deal?!

And still we made our ascent. True, the panorama didn't look like something I could reach out and touch, but when the door slid open a few inches from my face and the wind billowed in, almost beckoning us forward, I wasn't so sure this was a great idea anymore. And then, we shuffled to the edge, and my feet were dangling above the ground a long way down. Smile for the wing camera? I think I'd rather contort it in terror as my arms flail about, looking for something, anything, to grab onto and stop this madness before we . . .

And we're falling. Watch out below.

Plunging, head and feet tilted back, hands clasping my shoulder straps. The world is whizzing by, the mountains and land and ocean tumbling over each other as we spiral haphazardly. And then, something unexpected happens. I'm ok with this – this is a 45 second freefall, which means that it doesn't stay a blur. You start having unmuddled, rational thoughts – that really is a beautiful view of the Alps, this really is falling, my mouth really is unimaginably dry because of that frigging wind.

When I flew into Los Angeles some five months ago, I watched The Perks of Being a Wallflower on the flight across North America. I've been looking for a way to incorporate that closing quote into this story since that day, because it felt so relevant to what I was doing. At no point, however, did it make as much sense as I did when I was falling through the sky above Fox Glacier:

“You have to do things. I'm going to do what I want to do. I'm going to be who I really am. And I'm going to figure out what that is. And we could all sit around and wonder and feel bad about each other and blame a lot of people for what they did or didn't do or what they didn't know. I don't know. I guess there could always be someone to blame. It's just different. Maybe it's good to put things in perspective, but sometimes, I think that the only perspective is to really be there. Because it's okay to feel things. I was really there. And that was enough to make me feel infinite. I feel infinite.”

This is amazing.

I guess it took 45 seconds before the I heard the whooomp of the parachute opening up above our heads, and our hurtle towards the ground abruptly halted and the inverted dive switched to an upright floating – I guess it took that long, but it felt both longer and shorter all at once. All I could do was catch my breath, shake Ben's hand, and say, in all sincerity, “Thank you for not killing us.”

“We're not landed yet!”

The plunge was over, and we were flying now, comparatively. Down and around we coasted, high enough so that you could still take in a wide shot of the sun shining on the tops of the rocks and the glisten of the frothing ocean. He directed my gloved hands to two handles of the parachutes, directing me to steer the blue sail above our heads. “How?” I asked.

“Do what you think you're supposed to do!”

Oh no Ben, the guy down at the airstrip said you'd tell us how to do this! Ben you idiot, you're going to get us both killed, or swept over to Australia, or both!

Pull the handle to the right, the parachute veers right. Pull it left, it goes left. I guess it wasn't so hard after all – not that I'd want to try landing on the empty patch of grass near the bright red marker, still just a faint mark on the ground. I'll leave that to someone who knows what they're doing. At one point, we let go of the left handle and hauled the right as far as it would go, causing the whole parachute to start twirling to the right, and fast. Look straight down as you do it, at the copses and cows, and try not to get a headrush of vertigo.

All too soon, our leisurely descent made the miniature trees and houses look normal size, and I handed the reins back. Feet up in front of us, there's the landing area . . . and we're jostled around slightly, sitting on the grass. Solid ground beneath my feet again. From takeoff to landing, it only took about half an hour, but the moment of falling and regaining control . . . well, that felt close to infinite.

I ended up with more of the day left than I had counted on when I first turned up in Fox Glacier, so I made a beeline back up the coast. My petrol lasted until Greymouth – oh, by the way, how much is gas back home? A buck twenty or something? My one qualm with New Zealand (which I'd been peripherally aware of since I came here but am only really realizing it now that I'm spoiled and have ready access to a vehicle) is that $2.10 for a litre of fuel is a bit much, especially when you're constantly adjusting your speed and sending the revs haywire over tight corners and steep hills. But such is life when you're miles from the middle of nowhere in the big ol' world – you pay for that exclusive privilege to explore this corner.

It was getting on late afternoon as I drove past Greymouth, up towards Paparoa National Park. When Olivia and I drove up the West Coast last month, from Haast to Kumara Junction, the road went through some amazing rainforests, but I remember saying, “Didn't you think we'd see more of, y'know, the coast?” We were never particularly far from the Tasman Sea, but still only caught a few glimpses before we turned into Arthur's Pass – north of Greymouth, though, that's the kind of area I envisioned when I thought of the West Coast. The lush forests are there, but they're on steep hillsides that literally meet the rocky edge of the ocean just down from the road. In one glimpse, you're seeing more things than your eyes can focus on at one time.

And even though it didn't rain, the clouds were starting to get a bit heavier up here. This felt more like a West Coast experience.

Driving through Punakaiki, there's not a lot to the community, beyond a few houses, roadside cafe, and an i-SITE. It's the mysterious geological feature just a short walk through the vibrant green forest that brings in the tourists: this is where the Pancake Rocks rear their heads as distinct limestone columns in the ocean.

Picture layer upon layer of pancakes. That's pretty much what you're dealing with here – hard and soft layers of stuff, under immense pressure over millions of years, built up this totally unique place. And it's not just one or two columns, it's hundreds, interspersed with sea caverns and blowholes of salty ocean spray. It's a twenty minute walk along the headland, where the Pancake Rocks are concentrated at the very edge of the mighty Tasman.

That made for a pretty cool detour on my adventure. The sun sat low behind the veil of the swelling clouds, so that the streetlights were on by the time I made my way back to Greymouth, and the stars were illuminating my drive back through Arthur's Pass. I could have stopped for the evening at a campsite along the mountain route, maybe should have, but it was one of those trips where I just wanted to get back to a familiar bed with a roof over my head, no matter what it took. There was still an hour left to driving when I hit the plains of Canterbury, but I relied on a semi-hypnotic autopilot mode to steer me across the Inland Scenic Route, pulling into Methven just past 9:00.

I went up in a plane, jumped, and walked away from it, and I felt like I did something important, something that the last year of my life has, in some way or another, been building towards. I guess I knew it was going to happen eventually, but I don't know if I ever really believed I was capable of doing it until we were perched on the edge of the plane, looking down at what lay below. And, just like the bungy, there's never going to be a time, from here on, where I haven't done this. Nothing can take this experience from me. All of these things were going through my body and soul, and it wasn't long that all I wanted to do was give in to exhaustion and sweet dreams.

If I had to go home tomorrow, I'd feel like I had the trip I wanted to have in New Zealand. That's a pretty swelling feeling of self-fulfilment, if you'll indulge me for just a moment and allow the gravity of that to sink in. And the best part is I'm not going home tomorrow – I'm going into Christchurch to sit in the audience as His Holiness the Dalai Lama discusses compassion. Deadly. Who would have ever guessed that this massive fall out of the ordinary would be such a dizzying rush of clarity? I might be back to earth, but I'm still steadily tumbling down the Rabbit's Hole.

Cheers,
rb