Indoor flying!
Jul. 12th, 2018 11:55 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
sawylDay trip to Basingstoke to do some indoor skydiving at iFly. After a leisurely start — painfully necessary after a very busy week — we caught the train at 11:30 and enjoyed the gentle potter down the Waterloo line. Arriving at our distination around 2pm, we caught the bus to our destination — fast, straightforward, and very reasonably priced — were we were confronted with the big skydiving building and, almost equally exciting, the water slides of the aquadrome.
We got there an hour ahead of time, went through the orientation video and a talk from the instructor, and got suited up. The protective gear involved a cover-all worn over normal clothes, ear plugs, a helmet, and a pair of goggles, with normal shoes allowed provided they were lace-ups. We then got another reminder of the various signs and signals before going into the vestibule of the tube.
The flying itself was good and seemed both longer and shorter than it seemed from watching people from the viewing area while we were waiting to go. Initially, it seemed a bit terrifying and there was a tendency to work a bit too hard, but by the second go we'd all started to relax into things. The session also featured a high fly, where the fans were sped up and, with the help of the instructor, we completed a spinning flight to the top of the tube — something that was both dizzying and amazing and slightly terrifying in equal measure!
Once our iFly session was over, we went to the aquadrome where we swam lengths while waiting for the water park section to open. Once that was available, we went round the current loop a couple of times and tried the water slides a couple of times. They were far more fun than I remembered and I even managed to go down one of them backwards after getting spun around by the current in one of the uphill sections.
After swimming, we caught the bus back to the centre and went for supper at Zizzi's — their gluten-free menu is good — before walking back to the station, taking in Basingstoke's slightly strange architecture in the process. We caught the train just after 9pm and got back in Exeter around midnight, walking home past the closed fast food places...
We got there an hour ahead of time, went through the orientation video and a talk from the instructor, and got suited up. The protective gear involved a cover-all worn over normal clothes, ear plugs, a helmet, and a pair of goggles, with normal shoes allowed provided they were lace-ups. We then got another reminder of the various signs and signals before going into the vestibule of the tube.
The flying itself was good and seemed both longer and shorter than it seemed from watching people from the viewing area while we were waiting to go. Initially, it seemed a bit terrifying and there was a tendency to work a bit too hard, but by the second go we'd all started to relax into things. The session also featured a high fly, where the fans were sped up and, with the help of the instructor, we completed a spinning flight to the top of the tube — something that was both dizzying and amazing and slightly terrifying in equal measure!
Once our iFly session was over, we went to the aquadrome where we swam lengths while waiting for the water park section to open. Once that was available, we went round the current loop a couple of times and tried the water slides a couple of times. They were far more fun than I remembered and I even managed to go down one of them backwards after getting spun around by the current in one of the uphill sections.
After swimming, we caught the bus back to the centre and went for supper at Zizzi's — their gluten-free menu is good — before walking back to the station, taking in Basingstoke's slightly strange architecture in the process. We caught the train just after 9pm and got back in Exeter around midnight, walking home past the closed fast food places...
