Weekends

I live for my weekends. Unlike my sister, although she's recently changed her mind a bit, I really can't stand cities. I will live in them when I have to but really I feel claustrophobic if I can't get out of them regularly. Thankfully, here in Melbourne I have the perfect escape. Every weekend I wave goodbye to the city, the trams and the traffic, the people and the stress (cos there's lots, I recently did a personality trait test for an employment agency and came out as mildly stressed and I don't even do anything!) and I head up the Hume Highway for an hour and a half to a little place called Nagambie, more specifically the Drop Zone just outside of Nagambie where I can spend a heavenly weekend throwing myself out of perfectly good planes for fun. There's not much there, a big hanger with a packing mat and bar in it, a hamburger van, a bunkhouse and some caravans. Oh, and a plane, the lovely XL750 specifically designed for skydiving. There's nothing like being up in the air at 14,000ft for curing claustrophobia! Out the front of the hanger is an open grassed area which leads out to the runway. There's a couple of picnic tables out there which are great to lie on and watch the parachutes come down and a hamburger stand called Greasy Gregs which does lovely chicken wraps (and the best hangover breakfasts...). Everyone comes out when you can hear the plane on the jump run and watches the exits from the plane (you can't see really solo jumpers but you can see formations which look fantastic, especially at the end of the freefall when they track away from each other). I love the noise that the 'chutes make when they open, it's a really loud 'whopwhopwhop' even though they're 2000ft away. When you're set up in the plane, it's a fantastic feeling when the red light comes on to say that there's 3 minutes left before the door opens, everyone gets up onto their knees and checks everyone else's pins on their chutes. It's handshakes all round and then the green light comes on and the door opens. One of my favourite moments is the smell of the air that high and the fuel from the plane when the door opens, it's kind of light if that makes any sense at all. Then you set up in the door, it's 'OK? Up! Down! Go!' and you're out and flying and it is flying, make no mistake, there's no falling sensation, it's fantastic! You're in the air and free. There's always a slight heart attack moment after you pull the ripcord and you're counting '1 thousand, 2 thousand, 3 thousand...' sometimes it's quite quick and you barely count to one but sometimes there's quite a delay and you're still falling, counting, thinking 'oh my god, oh my god' and then you get opening shock, do your canopy checks and it's all ok. Find the landing area and head for it, looking out for the others from the load. Once you're down on the ground, your heart is still going like a rocket and you're grinning like a loon (even if you've planted your face in the ground...) and that feeling lasts for ages! All that there's left to do is pack your canopy and head up again until operations stop and it's to the bar for everyone for a great evening. Weekends, in my opinion, pass far too quickly.