We also sailed on an World's Cup boat, and that was fun. When we tilted, we got to a forty-five degree angle. I got scared that I was going to fall out into the cold water. We would scramble to the other side of the boat whenever it turned. The lady said that the high side is the dry side. A man found that out the hard way by getting drenched!
Written by Charles October 23, 2013
Written by Charles October 23, 2013
Today we did a lot of different things. We went to a waterpark that all the water was
naturally heated to 80-90 degrees Fahrenheit.
They had 4 or 5 different pools and four water slides. My favorite part was the water slides. Then we went to a rock climbing gym. There were tons of walls to climb. There were also different “challenges.” There was a rope ladder, a staircase that
wobbled, and a huge slide. The spiral
staircase had huge pillars that went up twenty feet into the air, making a
staircase, and then you repel off them.
The ladder moved, and the slide was 24 vertical feet tall. A winch pulled a set of handlebars that
pulled you up twenty-four feet in the air.
Then you had to let go and slide down onto a mat.
After the rock gym, we did a couple hours of school. Then we did the highlight of the day. It was a flight simulator. It was one of the ones that were in an actual
cockpit of a plane. I went first and did
a really good job of landing the 737-300.
I landed and took off in Beijing.
It was hard because I had to fly right through the city and land at a
runway that I could barely see. I worked
the throttles, flaps, yoke (steering wheel), and the rudder all at the same
time. I only crashed once! The instructors that I was flying with said
that I should be a fighter pilot and then move onto a commercial airliner.
If you thought me crashing once was bad, I looked impeccable
compared to William. William crashed
into a tree, building, almost two mountains and even the runway! Everyone in the cockpit, including the
instructor, was laughing their heads off by the end of the forty minutes. William was terrorizing Queenstown by flying
twenty feet from mountains, skimming buildings and trying to kill the ground
crew. Some highlights were when he
landed, and ten seconds while halfway down the runway, he said “Oh! We
landed.” Also on a final approach he
said “Landing gear up. Wait, I mean down!” Also he turned a ‘touch and go’ into a ‘slide
the wing across the runway and go’! On
his last “landing” he managed to skid sideways down the runway and stop right
in front of the taxiway that led to the terminal. Lastly, when he stopped in front of the
taxiway, the instructor said that he needed to drop the passengers at the
gate. William did full throttle and
brought the passengers to their cars instead.
The instructor was an actual pilot who flies the new 787 Dreamliner from
Auckland to San Francisco. Those were two flights to remember!
Written by Charles October 24, 2013
I can now say I’ve jumped out of a plane. Yes, we went skydiving! My crazy family and I signed up for a 16,500
feet high jump! It was awesome! I was a little nervous after seeing my dad
jump out. It was my turn after he
went. I put my feet outside of the plane,
and immediately it felt like the wind would rip my legs off. After two seconds we were out of the
plane. We tumbled for less than a second
till we straightened out. I was strapped
to the instructor’s stomach, and I was falling on my stomach. I got scared when I saw the how far away the
clouds were. That feeling was
immediately overcome by excitement and adrenaline. I could have been floating in the air if the
wind hadn’t been trying to rip me from limb to limb! While I was in the air, I was trying to
figure out how to explain it all on the blog.
I finally realized that it was somewhat like skiing downhill very fast
with a t-shirt and shorts on. The
parachute opened at five thousand feet, while we were still in the clouds. We parachuted down, and I even got to steer
the parachute for a little while. We
floated down and hit the ground. The
instructor told me that we had gotten a whole 75 seconds of free-fall! He also told me that we averaged 200 kph
while in the free-fall. I thought that it
was the coolest thing we have done. It was tied for first with the flight
simulator.
After skydiving, we took a helicopter to lunch on an island
called Waiheke. It was in a vineyard,
and it was boring compared to skydiving.
I read for most of the lunch. The
interesting part was the helicopter ride, in which we saw lots of big yachts,
and we saw the tower I jumped off of. We
did school for the rest of the afternoon back in our hotel room Auckland. Tomorrow we are going to Australia. I think that I will like it
in Australia.
Fun facts about New Zealand (by William and Charles)
·
There are more sheep then people in New Zealand;
the ratio is 9 to 1.
·
There are no snakes in New Zealand or any other
deadly animal.
·
The most deadly animal in New Zealand is a
human.
·
The only poisonous things are a type of spiders,
which are very rare to find.
·
Gold was once a major industry in New Zealand.
·
There are few native trees left in New Zealand.
·
Sheep are not native because the British brought
them.
·
Most animals that are native are birds, such as
the Kiwi.
·
New Zealanders are called kiwis.
·
There are birds known to be as big as
fully-grown men. (They are extinct)
·
Volcanoes formed the North Island, while
earthquakes formed the South Island.
·
The Maori people (The Native People) were
cannibals.
·
The Al blacks (Their rugby Team) are one of the
best teams in the world.
·
The two islands of New Zealand came from two
different parts of Pangaea.
·
Scientists call New Zealand “the shaky isles”
because they have over 5,000 minor earthquakes a year.
Written by William October 24, 2013
A few days ago in Auckland, we went to a hot springs
waterpark, to a rock climbing place, and we also did a flight simulator all in
one day. At the waterpark, there were water slides that were around 36 degrees
Celsius, and they were really fast. We liked the water slides a lot, but my
parents got bored, so they dragged us to the hot pool, where it was really
boring. Then we went to an indoor rock-climbing place, which was a lot of fun.
I got to the top a lot of times on one of the walls.
I don’t know why, but my family says I crashed a few times
at the flight simulator. I thought I did perfectly fine, but they said my
landings were so bad that even the pilot was cracking up. What made him start
laughing was after I had already landed, I said, “oh, I landed?” at the end of
the runway. I also trimmed a tree, which I think was just helping the
gardeners.
The next day we went skydiving!! I was nervous and excited
at the same time, which the instructor said was normal. He said if you’re not
nervous, you’re crazy, and if you’re not excited, then what are you doing
there?! We took a plane up into the air 16, 500 feet, and then we jumped out of
the plane. We had a free fall for 75 seconds, during which I was hoping my
parachute would deploy. My dad was thinking to himself, “what have I done?” My
mom was trying not to throw up. Miss Jenn was having fun, and Charles was
wondering how he would describe it on the blog. I asked my parents if we could
do it again as soon as we landed, but they told me that they had a helicopter
coming to pick us up. I said “oh darn” sarcastically. Then we took the
helicopter over to an island called Waiheke, where we had lunch on a vineyard.
We were thinking of doing archery right in the middle of the vineyard, but then
we all got sleepy after the adrenaline finally wore off. After lunch we flew
back to Auckland and did school work for the rest of the afternoon. The
activities we did in Auckland were really fun, and I want to go back next year.
