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Sun, Sea, Sand
Beautiful Beach View from Mission Beach Following the huge stress of snorkelling, swimming and generally being sailed around the Whitsundays, we moved northward to Townsville and caught a ferry to the adjacent "Magnetic Island" where we'd booked an $89 3-day/2-night package at Base Hostel. The hostel had small rooms and a dreadful kitchen, but a huge bar right on the beach-front which more than made up for it! We met spent the majority of our time there playing cricket with other travellers from our Greyhound Bus, and spent an hour of the second day kayaking out to the peninsula neighbouring our hostel, where we saw fish, crabs and a turtle!
I cannot quite say how 'relaxing' this whole experience was, as about 4 weeks prior to this me (Ben) and Chris had booked (and paid for!) a 14,000ft Sky-Dive at our next stop - Mission Beach - in just 2 days time. We made the most of the beach time and tried not to think about the forthcoming madness of jumping out of an aeroplane from almost 3 miles up in the air, aided by the odd happy-hour beer.
When we arrived at Mission a few days later, we were met in our hostel by
Sky-Diving
Others follow where Ben and Chris had been before.... beaming faces and posters of Sky-Divers, with DVDs of those who had 'jumped' that morning on TV screens dotted around the hostel. The accompanying music, interspersed with shrill screams - did nothing to relax us, but we had to assume from the general aura of the place that people enjoyed it.
Following a reasonably sound sleep, we woke up early to shower and get picked up by our "Jump the Beach" crew who drove us all too quickly to the small Mission Beach airport where out Tandem Masters and light aircraft were waiting. We arrived with 3 similarly insane backpackers, assuming we would jump with them, but were told that a plane was already revving up and had space for 2 more maniacs. Not keen to hang around, we threw on our harnesses and headed over to the plane (don't worry, a quick check and briefing from our Tandem Masters confirmed all was in order!) and before we knew it we were climbing into the blue, morning sky of the Australian East Coast. It was a fairly surreal feeling, knowing that you are about to jump/be thrown out of a plane at 14,000ft, but I think the amazing scenery
Greyhound
We covered over 2,000miles up the Australian East Coast thanks to these buses all around us did enough to temporarily distract from the pending moment.
After reaching our jump height of 14,000ft, an amber light signalled 1 lateral mile to go, then a green light gave the all clear and the side door of the plane slid open. The intense sound of the air rushing past the door made our stomachs drop. As the last 2 'divers' on board, we looked on as the first 4 maniacs jumped out (and surprisingly quickly downward!) out of the plane. Chris went next, and I (Ben) followed straight after....
After the initial somersaulting and tumbling, and the indescribable sensory overlaod, we settled into our Sky-Dive position and proceeded to scream obscenities into our Jump Masters' ears! The feeling of free-falling was not at all what I had expected - it didn't give that stomach-in-the-mouth feeling like a rollercoaster or humpback bridge, instead it felt just like flying and was absolutely liberating! The nerves gone, we were able to enjoy our 9,000ft and 60 seconds of pure freefall, before the parachute chords were pulled, and relievedly the 'chutes opened first time. The next 4 or 5 minutes felt like slow motion in comparison with the
first minute, but gave great views of Mission Beach and nearby Hinchinbrook Island. What better way to start the day?
Before we knew it we had been expertly guided onto the narrow strip of sand separating the trees from the beach, and landed softly onto the golden sand. With huuuuuge grins on our faces we hugged and thanked our Tandem Masters, and headed back to the hostel. I went back to bed to catch up on the missed sleep from the early start, rising later in the day almost in disbelief that I had actually done a sky-dive that morning - had it all been a dream...?!
After the excitment of the day before, we should have taken the following day easy... instead we booked ourselves onto a 5 hr white water rafting trip down the Tully river. The rafting was amazing, with loads of rapids & drop offs, fantastic weather, a huge lunch and plenty of swimming, what more could we have asked for... Adrenline overload!!
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