Jump The Beach!

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We purchased a hop on hop off bus pass in Cairns that would take us down the East Coast back to Sydney. We jumped on the bus early last Saturday morning and headed 'down the Highway' to Mission Beach.

We were picked up by our hostel at the bus stop and spent the next few days relaxing in Mission Beach at Scotty's Beach House, the best hostel we've been to so far. It was so relaxing, the staff were friendly and they even carried my bag to my room for me. There was an amazing pool with a log across the middle that you can battle your opponent with inflatable noodles, so i spent the next fews days messing around in the pool knocking Gaz off the log and playing volleyball.

Cassawarries are about 6ft tall flightless birds and are native to mission beach. They are apparently quite scary looking but me and Gaz fancied our chances against one and thought it would be quite cool to see one of these crazy looking birds so during the afternoon our hostel bus dropped me and Gaz and two others at Licuala Forest State Park. It was a 7km walk through the rain forest and a further 1km along the road back to the hostel. We set out in high spirits hoping to see one of the cassarwaries and some other wildlfe but about 5 minutes into the walk the heavens opened and we spent the next 2 hours trudging through mud and streams through the rain forest. When you thought it couldn't get any worse it did and the rain got heavier and heavier. With the Cassawaries soon out of my mind and with my head down i stopped caring about thorns stuck in my skirt, the leaches that were probably sucking at my blood and 2 hours later we came to the road. To my delight the manager of Scotty's had been near and thought of us so came down the road to see if he could see us. I was so happy when he pulled up and let us in his car, he then drove us round to see if we could find any Cassawaries, unfortunately we didn't but we did get to see some wild wallabies and he told us stories about the area and all about the cyclone that had hit Mission Beach a few years ago.

Our main reason for visiting Mission Beach was to attempt our final adrenalin filled activity and sky dive 14,000 ft landing on Mission Beach. We opted for the early dive and at 7:30 Sunday morning we were taken down to the 'airport', shown the position to go into when falling and then loaded onto a particularly terrifying plane that had a door made of plastic. I have to say that the plane was tiny and probably more scary than the actual sky dive itself, three of us were to jump and we each had a professional tandem skydiver and a cameraman with us so it was a tight squeeze in the tiny plane. The weather had looked good from the ground but as we climbed our way to 14,000 ft the clouds came in and after a bit of debating they decided we would just have time to dive onto the beach before the rain came. Apparently it's really painfull to go through rain clouds so as soon as we reached the height we needed to reach we had no time to think and before i knew it i was being bundled towards the door and pushed out of the plane hurtling to the floor at 120mph. The feeling was awesome and we got 60 seconds of freefall before the parachute was pulled and you get the feeling of rising back up into the sky. It is then that i noticed the amazing views below me, the beach, the sea and the rainforest. It was stunning and as we floated to the ground i felt relaxed and had a beaming smile. My tandem skydiver let me steer the parachute for a bit and as we came to land she took back over. Unfortunately we came into land quite fast and i had a very bruised bum for the rest of the week.

If that was my only injury from jumping out of a plane then i thought that was pretty good!

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Photos

Falling out of a plane
Enjoying the freefall at 14,000ft

Cassowary Sign
Mind the Cassowaries!

Jump the Beach!
Loving my skydive

What a view
The scenary, not me!