What have i been up to this last few days in Mission beach? Just the usual, relaxing, walking, sky diving out of a plane at 14,000 feet!!

When we arrived to our very nice hostel, Absolute backpackers, we were third time lucky in getting upgraded to a four bed air conditioned room. It is nice to have a room to ourselves for a few nights, although it seems to mean we just have more space to spread our belongings around. Ruth had finally decided she was going to do the sky dive with me, so we decided to book it straight away for the next day before any itchy feet crept in!

That evening we utilised the hostel BBQ facilities and cooked a huge feast, it was delicious!

The following morning was sky dive day. The company came to pick us up at 7am to take us down to the office. I think Ruth was up from about 5am worrying! We arrived at the office and had to fill out a few forms and then wait. Our names were written on a board outside next to our skydiving master partners name. By this point we just wanted to get on with it and luckily we were put in the first group of the day. My master was called Klem, a very over enthusiastic guy but he was very nice. Ruth's master was called Rory and had a more sensible and serious face! Our instructors fitted our harnesses and filmed some awkward interview footage for our DVD. We were then given a quick safety brief and instructions what to do when exiting the plane and landing. We were then straight on the bus to the airport about 20 minutes away. There were 7 of us in our group and I don't think anyone spoke the whole bus or plane ride up! We had no idea what had let ourselves in for! We arrived at the 'airport' which was actually just a patch of tarmac on a field with a tiny little plane on it. We were straight off the bus and straight onto the plane. Whilst ascending we all sat facing the back of the plane, it's really strange being seated backwards for a flight! We were all sat with our legs either side of a bench and were sat really close! Klem liked to give me the guided tour, I was told what was in every field and about the rivers and islands. I didn't really care at that point. This is when our instructors attached themselves to our harness. The plane ride up took about another 20 minites and was really beautiful. We could see all the surrounding islands and the water looked like pure glass. It sounds a bit Forrest Gump-y but you really couldn't tell when the sea stopped and the sky began. Klem showed me his altitude watch at 7000 feet when we were only half way up, it felt then like we'd been on the plane for ages! It's strange, but both Ruth and I said the nerves never really kicked in like we expected, we more just wanted to get up and on with it. Then before we knew it, the door was opened and the first person was out as quickly as that. We all followed straight after. There was no time to think about it. The person in front of me shuffled onto the floor to the edge and we went straight after. We got to the edge, I had to tuck my legs under the plane and then Klem just chucked us off. The first 15 seconds was disorientating, you had no idea what was going on, then we stabilised out for the remainder of our 60 second free fall. We dived around 9000 feet but it doesn't even feel like you are falling. It was such a great feeling to look around across the water and the reef, the beaches and all the islands, you never get to see it at that perspective as an uninterrupted 360 degree view. It was incredible! Klem enjoyed doing lots of wooping and lots of spins, which was strange to see the ground twirling around from that aspect, but it was a lot of fun. But before you know it, the parachute is pulled and everything slows down as you glide down to the beach. This probably took around 5 minutes. Throughout the whole sky dive, Klem did a lot of wooping so you have to join in! Klem loosened the harness a little, so it is a bit comfier and was chatting away and pointing out turtles in the water below, it was really nice. He then let me steer the parachute and we did some big twirls before coming into land on Mission beach. As there wasn't much wind, we apparently came in very fast, but all I had to do was keep my feet up and we would land on our bottom. The landing on the sand was surprisingly comfortable! We had done it! I think I am in love with Klem for getting me down with a smile on my face the whole way! Relieved and ecstatic, Ruth and I were reunited! We were very proud and had had such a good morning and it was only 9.30am! This amazing feeling has lasted two days, I think all the adrenaline from the nerves before was totally worth it and both of us would do it again without a second thought. Words can't describe how much I recommend it to those who are considering it! :)

We had to wait a short while for our DVD to be edited and we calmed down a little! When I work out how, I will upload them on Facebook. Any suggestions how we go about this would be appreciated!

We then decided to walk back to our hostel along the beach. We had been warned that there is a creek half way along that we have to cross and should only be done at high tide. We were told this is because a crocodile lives in the creek, but I think that is a myth to stop people crossing when it is really deep and prevent jellyfish stings. Anyway, as we did not know the tide times we popped into the tourist information office to ask . They said we should be ok crossing at this time and to just quickly 'tippy-toe across it to avoid stingers'. This was the worst information we've ever been given. When we reached the creek, it was a fast flowing river! I tried to quickly cross but your feet sunk into the sand so no tip-toeing was done. Instead we waded through water up to our belly buttons! Drenched, we then continued along to dry off back at base. The beach is really long but is a bit messy at the moment due to a cyclone that hit the town and has ripped up all the nice trees, so bark and logs are scattered all over the place. We ended up missing the place where we were meant to leave the beach and walked way to far, but I guess it was good for us. We returned back to the hostel to have a cold shower, chill out, and relive our sky dive experience as we watched each others DVDs back.

Jade and Sally spent their day doing one of the walks in town up a huge mountain to the lookout point. This is really hard work in this weather. They explored the tiny town and came back. We then all went out in the hostel minibus on a wild wallaby and cassowary hunt. We saw loads of wallabies but the endangered cassowary was no where to be seen. These are birds that look like ostriches but have a blue neck and a horn on their head.

That evening we had a film night at the hostel, watching 'Copcall' and received free popcorn. Exhausted but proud of our achievements for the day, we went to bed very happy!

The following day, Jade and Sally went out white water rafting for the day, so Ruth and I had a slow start! We took the bus up to Lacey creek to walk around the rainforest track and have a swim in the freshwater creek. As we were getting picked up, we were treated to a quick, but heavy tropical storm. But it left as quickly as it came. We were dropped off in town and took two minutes to look around it, it is such a small town. I invested in some new sunglasses as mine had broken, bought an ice cream and walked back to our hostel along the beach. It was much nicer today as it was sunnier so looked prettier and was low tide so we could get across the creek easily.
Ruth and I went out again on the wildlife drive and saw a cassowary today which was really good as it is a strange looking bird!

We returned to the hostel to find Sally and jade relaxing in the jacuzzi part of the swimming pool. They had had a really great day rafting and had lots of funny tales to be told.

We have all had an adrenaline filled, exciting time in Mission beach with time to relax. We have all had a lot of fun and I think skydiving and rafting may have made our top moments lists!
Tomorrow we are taking our last greyhound bus up to Cairns, our last destination in Australia. It's crazy go think how quickly the time has gone and in a weeks time we will be in our next country for the next chapter of our adventure!

Amy. x