And You Though Kayaking Is Crazy…

Any chance to fly the flag in Norway

We spent the week camped at the skydiving club and so met lots of sky diers and base thumpers. It was classic to have these people tell us we were crazy for kayaking… I mean come on they jump of cliffs for fun!! There were also the tell tale signs of the increased injury risk with sky diving and base jumping from the number of people limping around on crutches. To be fair though I do know of three people who dislocated their shoulders kayaking during the week and one who dislocated a rib.

The helicopter pilot with his own version of base jumping

Anyhow we though we should checkout the action first hand so on Friday afternoon we cursed out to Gudvangea where there is a spot they jump from with an eleven second free fall… ok so to take advantage off the full eleven seconds you have to hit the ground but you can imagine that it is pretty high. It’s all so a nice place to hangout in the sun for a day.

Two at a time...

Most of the jumpers were getting helicopter rides up but you can also walk to the top. Eden and I had no such plans but Rolf made the trek straight up the valley and got all the wonderful photos you see here while we hung out with all the hot Norwegian girls in the pleasant sunshine. Rolf was rewarded with a free helicopter ride back down… we were waiting for him to appear in a parachute having jumped off but I guess no one had a spare.

Upside down...

Probably the coolest guys to watch were the dudes in the wing suits. We have been told that they can slow their vertical decent down to about 70 kph while travelling horizontally at 140 kph. All my doubts were laid to rest when the first guy in a wing suit flew over our heads and pulled his chute before crashing into the other side of the valley!Or ever nude... it didn't seem to matter to these guys.