TJ Jumps out of a Plane!

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Hellooooo everyone!

So this is an update from our time at Mission Beach, and by the title I'm sure you can guess it was an exciting couple of days. We bussed up from Magnetic Island and arrived in Mission Beach about 4 hours later. As a side note, we ate the most delicious pies at a truck stop in the middle of nowhere!

Mission Beach is a very small town that is currently putting itself on the map as a tourist destination by offering cheap whitewater rafting and skydiving. It also boasts excellent hostels with high reviews. We chose Scottys and weren't disappointed.

On our first night we ate at a proper restaurant, which was a nice treat. There were candles on the table, nice views from the patio, and thankfully $10 pizza specials. Then we turned in early so that TJ could rest up for his adventure. The next morning he woke up bright and early to catch the shuttle bus to the airport. They loaded 14 people onto a plane that should have only held 3 people, took off, and ferried the prospective jumpers up to 14,000ft (Australia's highest skydive). I say "prospective" jumpers because one girl, later to become our friend, almost didn't go. TJ reports that she was crying the entire way up in the plane, utterly terrified. In the end she and all the others jumped. At 14,000ft you go to the door and you don't have a choice, you just kind of fall out into nothingness. At that elevation jumpers get a 60 second freefall before the chute is pulled at 4,000ft. When TJ free-falled (is that a word?) his tandem buddy ensure they spun around in circles, and he said the wind hit them with such force that it was impossible to close your mouth. The day was quite overcast, so back at the hostel I was wondering if they'd even get a chance to jump, but luckily for them there was a hole in the clouds a few kilometers offshore over Dunk Island. When they pulled the chute, they drifted through a bit of cloud and then out into clear, where he could see rainforest, beach and the Great Barrier Reef. He landed on the beach and that was that! (Other skydivers reported that TJ was ridiculously calm the entire time).

That afternoon we went on a jungle walk. I will admit right now that if I had known what we were getting into, I probably wouldn't have done it. However, the guy from the hostel drove us about 7km out of town and dropped us at the mouth of the trail and we were committed. The trail is through a national park, but the end we started at was in disrepair. It was overgrown with vines and enormous palm leaves, and two of the bridges were out, leaving us to wade through potentially crocodile-infested rivers. At the second bridge we reached that was closed, we actually ignored the "detour" sign and just walked across the rickety old bridge anyway. In many places the trail was underwater so we slogged through mud. And the truly terrifying part of the hike was the two enormous golden orb spiders we encountered. Sure they're beautiful (and harmless), but they are the size of my hand with a web about as thick as a chain-link fence. *shudder* Thankfully we had slathered on the mozzie cream and weren't bitten to badly. In the end, we enjoyed the hike a lot and were glad to have done it, although we didn't accomplish our primary purpose in jungle trekking, to find a cassowary. Cassowaries are giant ostrich-like birds with blue heads. They apparently can reach almost 6' in height, and are endangered. Anyway, no luck there, but it was a good adventure!

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