Wow!! Wow!!! Wow!!! What a Monday this turned out to be!! Was so excited as today was SKYDIVE DAY!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! Whoop whoop! I couldn’t sleep a wink last night, nothing to do with dreaming about the parachute not opening or anything like that, oh no I was dreaming about slamming into them rocks at bloody water rafting yesterday!! Nightmare! Everytime I closed my eyes bang, into another rock, I couldn’t get this image out of my head. I was so damn excited about skydiving oh man……soo excited!!
We were up early cause we were jumping out the plane at 7.30am so that was it, I was up, ready and roaring to go! Lisa weren’t as excited as I was, she was more nervous lol! Bless her! We got picked up from Scotty’s and taken to the airport near Tully. On the way we filled out a disclosure form, signing our life away Lisa was saying, oh man this got me going even more!! Pulled up to this tiny little airport and went into an office where we had to pay the remaining balance and chat about the DVD packages and stuff if we wanted it. I wanted all of it, didn’t care how much it was gunna cost I wanted the video the pictures the lot! We had to walk through the yard bit where they kept all the chutes and stuff, and in the corner I spotted this instructor who was completely out of it on the sofa, he didn’t move a muscle when all us lot walked through – obviously didn’t wanna be there this morning! Lol.
We were the second group to go up, this was me, Lisa, Brad, Danielle and Shelly. So the others had there talk, then that was it they disappeared. It was our turn for the demonstration and advice! So we went into the area and I saw the board up with our names on and who our instructor was. One dude was in there already taking peoples weight and I was so hyper I was chatting away to him. Anyways, I was like is that a tramp over there, he not got a place to stay at or does he work here, a cleaner or summit. He was like, oh no he is one of the instructors, he was out on the lash last night and is still drunk really I was told! At this point my head is going all over so im like ok, so who are we jumping with, he reads through the list, Lisa your with Andre, Shelly your with him, Danille your with him, Brad your jumping with me and then he said who’s Amy, I was like that be me, he said well you’re the lucky one, you get to jump with Igor. So who is Igor I asked, he said you want to go and wake him up!! I was gutted!! My instructor was the drunken piece asleep on the sofa weren’t it!! Well that changed my hyperness down a few notches didn’t it!! Lol! Typical, this called for a cigarette! Calm the nerves that just sprung up! At least by this point Igor was awake and functioning!!
Jeezz! So, the talk was over in about 2 minutes, then that was it, I was out in the airfield having my interview for my DVD with Igor! Asking me questions that I can’t really remember answering, but yeah I was already in the plane before you knew it! I was second from last getting in so that meant second out the plane!! Oh my god!!!
Up we went, climbing the feet, 3,000 that was alright, then it was 7,000, this was high – this was like the top of the mountain high! We still had another 7,000 to climb before we jumped!! But at 7,000 the bloke in front of me was doing a jump on his own so they opened up the door! Oh my god, the whole plane swung from left to right then levelled up! The whole journey Igor was filming me, the view the plane the others, it was awesome! But seeing this bloke get sucked out the plane of my days the adrenaline took over my whole body!! I couldn’t wait to do it.
It was such a perfect day, and the time of day was awesome it was so clear, the odd cloud but we soon went above them. The view we had was just unbelievable, we saw the Great Barrier Reef as clear as anything, and Dunk Island next to it, wow, we could see out to sea for miles. We were landing on the beach so to the other side was Mission Beach, just outside of Scotty’s where we were staying. Brilliant!
It came closer to the time and Igor got me to look around and watch him clip me onto him, good job I made sure hey dad!! Haha! He was cool by the way; he was from Egypt or some random non Australian country and was the most experienced instructor in the company! (This I got told after I landed!). Such a cool dude though, he kept his hat on till we jumped out lol! So, it was that time or should I say that height, we had reached our 14,000ft! It was time for the doors to be open. Igor instructed me to just before we jump out, im to turn and smile up to the video camera as its gunna film us drop! Whoop whoop!!!!!! Sooooo excited! We edged forward, one last look back at Lisa to make sure she was ok now, (she freaked out bless her but she was good now, she was psyched!) and then that was it, a kiss for the camera and wooooooooosh!, I dropped out the plane!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
It didn’t even feel like I was falling. Falling at speed of lightening for 90seconds of freefall! Wow! It took my breath away, I knew that if I couldn’t catch my breath I was to scream, so I screamed my but off, taking in the view and the feeling – oh man what a feeling. It didn’t even feel like I was heading towards the ground at an incredible speed, the thought of the parachute not opening didn’t cross my thoughts, I was just in the moment, and loving every second of it!
That was when I felt the double tap on the shoulder and this meant hold my arms across my chest cause the parachute was gunna shoot us back up into the sky. It killed me! Oh man, where Igor had done my harness up soo tight it nearly cut me arms off! But then the noise stopped, and my glasses came off and wow, again the wow factor was on me, we were flying through the sky, I was soaring! It was mental! That was when I could really take it all in, the views and just exactly how high we were and the reef and Dunk Island where just a vision! Igor was still filming, a good camera man actually lol! But then he gave me the parachute and it was all me, I was in control and flying us! He taught me how to turn and that was it we were off! I was steering the chute! Wow! The 12th wow I think!! We were coming in, down and around pretty quickly and before I knew it we were just above the trees and coming into land on the beach. He reminded me to lift my legs up as we came into land so we could land standing up and not to move away till he said incase I got bundled by one of the other skydivers!
We did it, we landed so gracefully and on our feet too and that was it, I done it! I jumped out of a plane at 14,000ft!! Result! So proud of myself and would go straight back up there again and do it again and again and again! You must all do it….take my word for it….its a WOW moment! Lol!
By this time it was only about 11.00am so we went back to the hostel to boast to everyone else about it and get on the net and tell everyone at home what we had just done! A huge and well impressed smile was on my face for the rest of the week!!
The week started with a high, then we kinda had a kick in the face Tuesday cause we were unable to get on the Oz Bus when we wanted to, so this meant we were stuck in Mission Beach for an extra 5 days! That was a long time to be at Mission Beach as all its got is one hostel, one shop, one bottle shop and one pub!! That be it! People only stop here for the skydive and white water rafting like we did!! But hey, it worked out well because we managed to get a job at Scotty’s, our hostel. Only doing some cleaning but we saved on accommodation fees! Result! When it came to the cleaning we had to make sure all the pots and pans were clean and available for the backpackers to use at breakfast, lunch and dinner! Easy work!
Quickly made loads of friends here, the staff and the people were piling in off the Oz Bus so we quickly increased our number from 2 to 14 easily! It was wicked fun, we started the drinking games, got introduced to goon (cheap box wine), and made friendships that we are defo following up on the rest of our journey in Oz.
The week saw us have a hostel bbq (lots of us got stuck at Scotty’s due to the lack of OZ Bus so we made the most of it!), spend the night on the beach under the amazing view of stars, and plenty of fun in the pool on the balance beam! I even learnt how to back flip off it! Impressed hey!!
So welcome to the game Shirley, Liz, Tina, Jodie, James, Mark, Sarah, Danielle, Shelly, Vicky, Dave, Brad, the Irish girls, Diane, Kirtsy and another Dave! Most of them left before we did, but we sacked off the Oz Bus and opted for the road trip with Vicky, Troy and Irish! Vicky worked at Scotty’s behind reception and had to go down the coast to promote the hostel at some hostel festival thing so offered us a lift. We took it and they were to drop us off at Magnetic Island. This was Friday morning, early!
We did the usual quick clean up and then hoped in the car with Vicky to go meet with the boys at the airport where we did our skydive from. Irish was cool, a typical PR bloke, loving his easy job in the sun, and Troy was the Ozzie driver! We all were in his massive 4x4 monster truck thingy! It was mint! We had the IPod on, tunes blasting and having loads of giggles on the way! We stopped only at like 3 places on the way to Townsville where we had to get on the ferry across to Maggy Island. This was where we left the road trip!
Magnetic Island – an Island that is part of the Whitsundays would you believe, and is half an hour off the coast from Townsville (where Robbie Fowler now plays footy for!). The main difference between Maggy and the other Whitsunday islands is that it is the only one to half people living there all year round! Fact!!
So yeah, it is a beautiful island home to wildlife, pristine beaches and cheap accommodation aka BASE!! When we got there we didn’t think much of it but hey the weather was good, the place was busy and the coastline was gorgeous to look at. The books were right, it defo had pristine beaches!! We stayed at BASE hostel and again, it was no Scotty’s but the good thing was we were staying in a beach hut!! Oh yes! Lol! The hostel was right on the beach and was host to a scuba diving school so that was what we did the first day there, sat by the pool, soaking up the sun and watching people learn to dive!! It was so god damn hot – we caught the sun god and proper! We also got chatting to 2 English girls from Essex – Katie and Charmaine and they met an Israeli bloke called Ohad their first day and he was wicked! Such a cool guy! We had a right laugh with these 3, hit it off straight away, chatting bout home, where we had been/going and the usual stuff but yeah – hey were real cool. Decided that we would meet them in the bar later and have a few beers with them.
This turned into a mayhem of a night – loads to drink, loads to dance to, me and Charmaine changed a group photo in a hostel photo haha! Classic night! Even got Ohad on the dance floor!
We caught up with James, Shirley and Liz here too, but only for a few hours then they were off on their way with the Oz Bus. The following day we used our free sea kayak voucher n hit the sea to go find us some turtles! Not much luck though, it was really choppy so visibility was s***e! But hey, it was a giggle! This led us up to leaving the island – we only had 2 nights there, so the last night we had more drinks with Kirsty and Dave (from Mission) and our Essex girls!
The Sunday was travel day for us, we were on the move to Airlie Beach, this time with Sonic, our Oz Bus driver! He was kinda quiet, but we did only have a 16 seater bus and there were only 9 of us on it and the rest of them asleep apart from us!! But hey, it got us to our next hostel, Beaches Hostel Airlie Beach!
Airlie Beach is the gateway to the Whitsunday Islands and something of a backpacker mecca! There are heaps of pubs, clubs, and bars and it’s a great place to soak up the sun in a lively atmosphere. This is where you are to take to the sea to explore the Whitsundays by boat. Please check out the pics from our Whitsunday trip cause it was just spectacular.
Our first night here was purely a wander around and a catch up on sleep, ready for the next 2 weeks of mahem!!