Horse Riding and Sky Diving- Never a Dull Moment!

The last two Thursdays have been so exciting; we had CIEE excursions two weeks in a row! Nic and I had talked about how much we wanted to go horseback riding, so we organized a trail ride for Thursday, Sept. 1. She picked me up in the morning, and we wound around some beautiful back roads through some really cute coastal towns. She explained how as you go further north, the mountains get closer to the ocean, so the towns get narrower and narrower. We even drove along Lawrence Hargrave Drive, a beautiful and sceniccoastal road that juts out over the ocean.
We arrived at Otford Farms and made our way up to the barn to meet the instructor. After finding helmets and asking us a few questions, our instructor introduced us to our horses. I rode a chestnut mare named Cherry, and Nic rode a grey gelding named Simba. We mounted and soon we were on our way. Nic has only ridden a few times before and I have been riding for years, but we were both so excited for the next two hours. It felt good to be on a horse again, and the weather could not have been more perfect for our ride. We ambled along, crossing over creeks, climbing up rocks, and just taking in the scenery. We even got to trot and canter a bit as well. It was a lot of fun, and after about an hour, we arrived at the top of the mountain. We dismounted and went to the overlook to see the beautiful view. You could see more mountains and the coastline in the distance, and nearly right under our feet was a waterfall. After taking in the view, we went back to our horses and instructor and decided to make our way back down the mountain. As someone who has been around horses for nearly 10 years, I consider myself pretty knowledgable about horses and what theyare capable of. But I have never seen horses go over terrain like they did on this trail ride. Certain parts of the trail were so steep and rocky, that I would have had to be careful on my own two feet. But these horses took it all in stride, never appearing to think twice about it. At some points I would catch myself trying to guide my horse over the tricky parts, so I had to just close my eyes and let the horse figure out for herself. It was so fun for me to get to go on this trail ride. I need my horse fix every so often and this was a great ride.

The next week was the long awaited skydiving excursion. This was one of the CIEE trips we had been planning on from the beginning and it was so exciting that it was finally here. All week leading up to it, I kept waiting for the nerves to hit. I am definitely not a daredevil, but amazingly enough, I wasn’t very nervous. The morning of, Wayne, Nic, Justin and I drove up to "Skydive the Beach"-- and that is when I started getting nervous. While we were signing all the release forms it hit me that I was actually, voluntarily, jumping out of a plane. We got into our gear and went through a brief lesson on how to correctly skydive. Then our instructors came out and I got to Rob. He was really nice and had a great upbeat attitude that made it even more fun. Soon we were on the bus and then before I knew it we were on the tiny little plane on our way up! There were about 15 of us all together, including the pilot, and we were all squished together.

The view from the plane was incredible. You could look out the window and see the whole city of Wollongong, but my favorite part was when we were flying above the clouds. I distinctly remember when Rob tapped on my shoulder to tell me we were halfway up. All I remember thinking was, “Oh crap, only halfway!” And then as Rob was double checking our gear, the pair in front of us opened up the door and the nerves hit me all at once! I was absolutely terrified and given the choice, I would have hung on to the plane for dear life. What was I thinking, why does any part of plummeting to the earth sound fun? But at that point it was too late for second guesses. The pair in front of me dropped out of the plane, and Rob and I started inching toward the door. I just held on to my harness and closed my eyes as we first jumped out. I don’t even like roller coasters, and jumping out of the plane felt like the feeling that you get when you go down that first big hill. I was freaking out on the inside, but forced myself to open my eyes. When I finally did, it was absolutely incredible. Once you get over the initial reaction, free falling really is an amazing feeling. It was unlike anything I’ve ever done before and it was so much fun!

We free fell for nearly a minute before Rob opened the parachute. By this point, we had a really great view of Wollongong and the coast line. I remember thinking it looked just like Google Earth. Seeing the city from that angle was such a neat experience. I could make out various landmarks and noticing how small everything was and realizing how high up we still were definitely made my stomach flip though. Rob showed me how the parachute worked and even let me steer for a bit. Finally it was time for the landing and Rob set us up so that you just sort of float down and slide to a landing on your butt. When we were finally on the ground again I hardly knew what to do. It must have been funny to watch, but I could hardly stand up. I kept getting tangled up and Rob had to help me step out of the harness. We took some final pictures, I thanked Rob for an incredible experience, and I went to find Wayne, Nic, and Justin to see how their experience was. Since it was the first time skydiving for all of us, we had pretty much the same reaction: wow! We went to lunch and talked about what a great experience it was. Nic and I were the only ones to buy the pictures, so we looked through them together. There were nearly 200 pictures and it was so funny seeing the progression from meeting our instructors to going up in the plane to the actual skydiving reactions. We had a good laugh and were so glad we decided to do this. I can still hardly believe I did it, but it was a truly incredible experience and I’m so glad I did!