8 months working in New Zealand at the skydiving school located in pudding hill..

Will Fly back to the Netherlands on friday the 13th..  oei oei oei

  The leaves are falling from the trees, the winter is coming. We had super nice weather at the Pudding Hill dropzone the last week.

I have until the 12th of May the time to jump with the new group, the 13th I will fly back to the Netherlands again. It feels good to go home.

We had some beautiful autumn weather on pudding hill drop zone, at least 4 days of sunny weather and no winds.. Like normal, we are paying the price due to non-stop raining the last 24 hours..

I had changed my ticket back to the 13th of May so I am able to help out with the new group of students that starts coming Monday. I am pretty bored; there is not much to do at the moment. So going fishing with Stephan and finishing the painting of the last house are the things that keep me occupied the last weeks.

I am almost ready with the houses renovation project, it made my stay in NZ affordable.

Since the second earthquake in February things really slowed down, the tourists staying away, not jumping a lot anymore and therefore not earning much anymore. Not such a good end of a fun working season in New Zealand.

Really looking forward to return to the Netherlands, to sleep in my own bed, in my own house on the prairie, and to see my friends again, 8 months in New Zealand.. Time went fast.

Scenery at the DZ, they warned me not to eat them..　

Today it is raining all day, typical NZ weather, working at home, laptop, and the chair in front of the fireplace and watching heroes. Stephan is busy with the januari courses coachingsrating. So the class is busy the coming days.  not much coachingjumps with the new group left, on 18th of april the new course starts, that will be a busy one. after there AFF and coaching jumps i will be travelling back to the Netherlands. my planes leaves the 13th of may. It is promissing te be a nice and busy season for Martijn, with a lot of new things, the attending the Freefly festival in Voss (Norway) in august, and the ToraTora artistic flightmeet & boogie in Moorsele (belgium) that same month.

The last one organise the Summer Jam boogie, specially for fun jumpers, this year was the second edition, and for a change with ToraTora, It was handy for the owners to arrange a deal with Martijn to put some ToraTora Vibes at the boogie, and it worked. It was a fantastic boogie, with 2 jumping days from the 4 boogie days, a lot off activities organised, and as a present ToraTora arranged the end of day boogie edits after the jumping and eating. Everybody had a good time, little disappointed in some people, but nothing new.. A great party on saturday, completely sponsored by Icarus canopies, Free drinks all night long..  and the pilot bill shot a big deer, and organised a hangi, a maori way of preparing food in the ground.. a amazing epic party, that i never saw before  What I found out is that New Zealand has a pretty solid clan of fun jumpers, but they are scattered around because of the lack of skydiving events en fun jumping friendly drop zone’s. there is a potential.. Maybe i’ll be back for the 3th edition of the summer jam boogie, i really don’t know.. but I hope more people will get involved with charisma and passion for the sport and to make fun jumping in new Zealand bigger than it is now..

What a misery, the earthquake demolished Christchurch and her surroundings, more than 30% of the buildings in the city have to be replaced, if they not already being flattened by the quake because it is to dangerous to use them.. A lot of casualties, a lot of pain for everybody involved, This will take a long time to recover from. But the the NZ people are strong, everybody is helping and they get help from all over the world.

I really don’t know what this will do with the tourism in this country, I must be affected to some change, but you can only wait and see.. For the time being me and Jet escaped Methven and started a road trip around the island.

We will visit the fiord land national park, deep into the doubtful sounds, and will kayaking there for a couple of days, we will visit Liam, working at the NZONE tdm drop zone, and Lisa, working at the drop zone in Wanaka.

After all that driving also booked a day in the Hamner Springs for some relaxing..

I really like to escape the working and living in Methven, It is super to charge the batteries and to see something from the island. New Zealand is too beautiful to skip the travelling around.

After a long and nice day at my work here, came home and found a big box before my door, almost 10 KG of dutch supplies.. Food and candy J sent by my parents from Holland to the other side of the world.. Very nice ! Thanks for that !

The day started with beautiful weather, but no airplanes, due to maintenance, so we went speed flying from the ski area mount hutt 4000 FT.. Drive 20 minutes, out of the jeep, walk 10 meters, and ready to run.. amzing how relaxed everything went.. Off course no snow, but a lot of rocks.. It was a amazing flight, and landed safely at the bottom of the mountain.. Within 1 ½ hour we were back on the DZ.. After that 10 working jumps.. Beautiful day today…

Life is good in New Zealand, the life paste here is a lot more relaxed than in NL, The month January was jumping wise good for me, it mostly happened in the last week, but all the AFF with the new group was really fun to do, everybody has done their AFF and are now ready for the nxt stage of there stay here at the NZ Skydiving school.

With some friends went to the buskers festival in Christchurch (www.worldbuskersfestival.com) really funny, but during the show of “the boy with tape on his face” we were sitting at the front row.. They did stupid things on the stage, but you have not really a choice if he picks you out from the people to come on to the stage.. Was a nice evening outside methven

Activities booked for some real NZ wildlife experience, a 2 day kayak trip through the doubtful sounds including overnight in the rain forest and mountain biking at the Bendigo gold mining area near Wanaka, have only one week available, so must use the time well. Life is easy with a credit card with balance.

woody on stage looking like euhh eu 

The 2011 Season for ToraTora is booming more than before, check our calendar at

www.toratora.nl

Martijn behind the new mac’s for the tandem editing..

What is also really good is that the old group, all of them with there USPA coaching rating is now also teaching the new group under supervision of the instructors.. Amazing to see how everything blends together, every new student get s a buddy from the old group that will teach him the DZ life, but also helps with briefings, debriefings and jumps with him.

The old students are helping me during the jumping operation with briefings, and debriefs of the AFF and coaching jumps that I do with the new group students, that started the 11^th of January. Amazing to see how much they have learned so far.. Some of them already are really good coaches..

So… can’t complain, really happy and relaxed living in NZ.. The agenda for the 2011 is getting busier and busier.. It looks like another year of jumping with ToraTora, Travelling, visiting and jumping new places.. And I stopped smoking, already for a couple of days.. A nicotine patch helps me trough the rough times. But I’m really keen to stop.. a package of marlboro costs almost 15 dollars here in NZ..

The weekend is coming, and hopefully with good weather and jumps..