Hang gliding over Abel Tasman National Park – April 30, 2011

Nelson is the sunshine capital of New Zealand and the place that I decided to hang glide. It’s something that’s always appealed to me and this was the first time along the trip that I had the chance to give it a try.

The weather was just perfect, with a beautiful cloudless sky. I wasn’t aware when I first booked it, but we weren’t going to be running and jumping off a cliff with the hang glider (like I imagined). Instead the hang glider was tied to a micro light plane and towed up into the sky and released. Apparently this is the safer method, and we could actually get up higher in the air.

They fitted me with a helmet and gave me a warm jacket and gloves. I had to put on a stiff suit that was a cross between a jacket and a sleeping bag. From my bag I was clipped to the hang glider, and in front I was clipped to the pilot, who also wore the same stiff suit.

Lift off was a very cool feeling. I could see the micro light taking off, and then suddenly we were also airborne. We circled higher and higher until we were at 2720ft, when we were released from the micro light. That was a strange feeling as well. At first we were being pulled forward, and then all of a sudden we were weightless and gliding.

I had views of Abel Tasman National Park, mountains and the orchards below us. It was much quieter than a micro light flight. We did some turns on the way down, and it felt like being on a roller coaster, only really, really high up in the air. I got that kind of sick feeling in the pit of my stomach. It was kind of freaky being that high up out in the open and feeling like I could just drop at any time. The flight was about 15minutes long.

The landing was really cool. As we got closer to the ground the pilot turned the hang glider so that it looked like we were in a nose dive straight for the ground. He suddenly guided it upwards so we just coasted along a few meters above the ground. We were going so fast I felt like we might crash before we landed, but before I knew it we were rolling along the grass and coming to a stop.