Now as some of you know, I'd already decided to go galavanting to the other side of the world before I met Billy. I'd applied for and had my Australian working holiday visa granted, was intending on doing some au pair work for 6 months whilst out there, with maybe just a stop off in Thailand on the way through... (what WAS I thinking?!) As it turns out, Billy was already planning to go on his travels too, so I like to think it was a little bit of fate that brought us together! Silly me thinking that I could keep my original plans even though realistically, after 5 solid months travelling together I was never going to want to leave him was I?! Haha!

We went through a pretty rough time in the hospital, and although it was only 3 days, the bug Billy contracted was still a serious one. It may have only been a mild case of it, but he was still dosed up on drugs, on a drip, and being treated as if he could have malaria or dengue, which was a horrible experience. Moments like that make you realize that life is too short. It makes you realize that you should live each and every day as if it's your last, and spend as much time as possible with the people you love. It was there and then that we decided that I'd be coming home with Billy in June, instead of doing another 6 months alone...

Having finally been given the go ahead to be discharged from the hospital, we headed straight for Lake Tinaroo for some much needed rest and recuperation. The doctor had told us we'd need to come back in just under a week's time for Billy's blood test results, so unfortunately we had to stay fairly close by. Luckily we'd seen Lake Tinaroo signposted in a couple of different spots around Atherton, and in our handy campsite guide it looked like the perfect place after the drama we'd endured! As the campsite was situated literally 100m across from the lake, it meant there was loads of activities for us to get stuck into... kayaking, jumping pillows, swimming pool, barbecues, you name it!

Soon it was time for us to head back into the town of Atherton for Billy's results, and as he'd perked up a lot since being discharged, we weren't expecting it to be anything serious. We were wrong though, and it turned out that Billy had contracted Leptosporosis - a life threatening tropical bug unique to Queensland, which is in the urine of possums, dogs and rats. Thank god he only had a mild case of it, I dread to think how bad it could have got! His doc was lovely though, and rather cheekily Billy decided to try and get an X-Ray done on his shoulder... yep the one he injured in Koh Tao whilst trying to be 18 again! We waited an hour for the results to come back, turns out he only went and fractured his clavicle didn't he - silly b***** haha! Now that we'd done everything we needed to in Atherton, it was just an oil filter and change with Mick in Malanda, and then we could finally leave the Tablelands behind and start making our way down the East Coast... not before jumping out of a plane first though of course!

When we set off on our travels we'd both said skydiving was at the very top of our 'bucket list', and as we were heading back to Cairns, we thought we'd check it all out and get something booked. I'd been told by a couple of my friends to do it over Mission Beach, which was one of the infamous beautiful beaches facing out towards the Great Barrier Reef. We couldn't have had better luck if we tried, as the first travel shop we walked into offered us the best deal, 2 for the price of 1 and saving pretty much $300 - doesn't get much better than that does it?! We booked for the end of the weekend, but were warned that with the weather always changing, it could end up being cancelled and we'd have to reschedule for another day when it wasn't so windy. Anywho, this meant we had a couple of days to completely relax and enjoy our Cairns surroundings, so we headed straight for the lagoon - a lush outdoor swimming pool situated right on the esplanade overlooking the sea, and is free to everybody! For most of the year it's advised not to enter the waters in Cairns because of box jellyfish and crocs, so this bodes well as a replacement, especially as the weather was scorching!!

No sooner had we booked our skydive and were welcoming two days until the nerves could appear, were we catching an early night in our little camper, in order to be picked up by minibus at 6 the next morning. AHH!! I kid you not, I was like a little kid at Christmas, I was just so excited... no nerves to be seen!! Billy however, was pooping himself a little bit. Either way, we were both psyched to finally be ticking off our number 1 on the bucket list, even if doing that meant throwing ourselves out of a plane - yes you'd be right in thinking we're bonkers :) we were first to be picked up so enjoyed a further 30 minutes of hostel stopping and meeting our fellow skydivers, some of whom were from England which was really nice, as it meant we had some good conversation during the 2 hour drive to Mission Beach.

As we neared the beach I STILL wasn't nervous (which was unusual for me) so I just decided to be grateful and go with it... which meant walking into the building with the biggest grin on my face - so big that the Irish guy at reception proceeded to tell me that I was the happiest girl to walk in for months! As you can imagine, this just made me beam even more! :) As we were a really big group, it meant that we would have to be staggered across the whole day as only a handful could do their dives at any one time.... we weren't going up until lunchtime, so it was pretty fun to gauge people's reactions before and after, as well as watch their personalized DVDs back on the big projector screen! As part of any skydive there's options to have it filmed - either by your tandem master, or by another person who jumps out especially for you. This last one is pretty pricey, but of course that's the one we were going to opt for.... it's not every day you jump out of a plane at 15,000ft is it?!?

Finally it was our turn to get geared up. We were introduced to our tandem masters and videographers, then it was time to goooo!! A 15 minute drive to change over and go up, up and away in our tiny little plane - which may I add looked a little old and rickety to say the least. Everybody was absolutely buzzing on adrenaline at this point!! We loaded into the plane, were strapped to our masters, filmed a couple of videos, then soaked up our beautiful surroundings while we still had time. As we approached 15,000ft the views below were just incredible, and you could see each little turquoise reef in amongst the ocean. I couldn't actually believe that I was about to do this, and over such a breathtaking setting too! There were 5 of us on the plane... A lovely Swedish girl was up first, as she was sat right by the door poor thing! Billy was going to be jumping second, and then me straight after. Apparently so that he could catch me if anything was to go wrong!? Haha kinda romantic I guess...

We'd been shown how to position ourselves with our tandem masters, now all that was left was for us to put that into practice....! Ahhh! Watching Billy and his master throw themselves out was both petrifying and thrilling all at the same time, but I didn't really have much time to think about it, as we were already shuffling ourselves to the edge of the plane! My videographer had already thrown herself out of the plane but was clinging on to the side, so she could get me in action.... Until you throw yourself out of a plane yourself, I don't actually think you'd be able to imagine just what a feeling it is. You hit the sky, air, wind, at an incredible speed, and you genuinely feel like you're flying... not realising how fast you are falling at the same time. I was making so much noise with excitement, but I could barely hear myself... I was just in awe at the fact I was flying through the air above the ocean, not scared or nervous... just completely chilled and at peace funnily enough. No sooner had we jumped out, was my master pulling that oh so important cord to release our parachute. This moment was up there with the best, as he gave me complete control. Steering us left and right, I even did a twirl! Insane!!!

Time to land on the beach, it all happened so quickly but back on land and with prime location to watch the last of the skydivers incoming. The adrenaline rush was something else! Me and Billy just looked at each other and pretty much at the same time said 'I wanna do it again!!!!' Ha. I think until you do it yourself that might sound pretty bonkers, but trust me, there is no other feeling like it, and once you've landed you'll wanna get straight back up there! To put complete trust in your master takes guts, but I firmly believe that to get anywhere in life you need to take risks, and live on the edge.

As there were a couple more plane loads to go up, it meant we could actually chill out and enjoy seeing everybody's reactions and DVDs knowing that we'd actually done that ourselves! It was amazing to watch ours back on a big screen, not believing we had literally only just done it.. it was all over already! After a long day we all got on the minibus and headed back to Cairns, knowing that what we'd just done was a fitting end to our time here.... next stop, east coast baby!!....

Or so we thought. The next day we packed all our stuff up, excited to finally be on our way down to Sydney. We'd only been driving for two hours, halfway to Townsville, where we were going to stop for the night, when LOADS of white smoke suddenly started billowing behind from the exhaust. To make matters worse, we were in this tiny little town called Tully AKA the wettest place in Australia. As if our luck could get any worse?!? Haha!! Now don't get me wrong, I know lots of banana pickers come here to get their 88 days of work completed, so it's obviously got it's good points... but to break down in the middle of somewhere that has only 1 campsite, and a street full of shops that looked quite dead, well - it just made us want to come home that little bit more!

Luckily a lovely lady at the RACQ (Aussie equivalent of our AA) took pity on us and all our bad luck, and booked us in for a compression test in 2 days time to check out what was wrong with the camper. Again, not much to do in such a small place... but we did climb up a gum boot 7.8 metres high (this is as close to excitement as it got here) which is the amount of rainfall Tully had in one year back in the 50's. Pretty cool but I'm sure England would challenge that though?! Hahaha. The compression test showed us that the head gasket had gone, so we got on the phone to Mick and arranged to be towed back to Malanda (costing a whopping $500)... so much for the East Coast! Some may say we took a massive risk in doing this, but we basically entrusted Mick with our van and the money that came with selling it, if he managed to do so. By this point it was sad to say that all we wanted to do was come home... so with that Mick signed a piece of paper to say he'd sell the van and transfer us the money as and when, and we were kindly dropped at the nearest bus station and pointed in the direction back to Cairns, where we would soon be catching a flight to Sydney.