So here goes!!! It was an early start up at 4.15am which was a shock to my system to say the least, especially when I didn't have a clue what was going on, that's right I wasn't allowed to know anything including what time we had planned on getting up! When I got back from the shower I was greeted by balloons on the bed surrounding a tinkerbell box with goodies inside. I was only allowed to open 1 of the 2 pressies inside; the other was to be opened later. With our cup of coffee ready to go we set off at 5.15am, it would've been earlier but we didn't actually manage to get up at 4.15am we were just too comfy and too tired. While we were driving we got full view of the sunrise which made me realise we must be heading East. Where east who knows, I wasn't even allowed to look at the road signs and that was about all I did know until about 6.30am which is when I was able to open my 2nd pressie. Well the next bit can't really be explained by me as I didn't have a mirror!!! But I was told my face was definitely a picture when I read what was ahead of me!!! I had said I wanted to remember my 21st but I didn't think I would be remembering it by falling out of a plane from 14000ft freefalling at 200km/min, which is 10000ft a min!!!! David's version is that the colour drained from me until I was ghostlike combined with the utter jiberish coming from my mouth, this to David was extremely amusing!! So that was that, I still couldn't believe what I was reading no matter how many times I read it, it just didn't go in, that was until I started to feel sick and by the time we got to the airport I was ready to say goodbye to whatever was inside me. It was a good job we were only 20 mins or so away from the airport when I found out as any sooner, well who knows!!! After emptying my insides, we got ourselves mentally prepared, or as much as we could and headed for the office. The airport wasn't an airport as such more like a landing strip in a field. As we had made our own way there we were the first to arrive which made the anxiety worse. We pretty much signed our lives away and paid for the photographer. David thought as it was my 21st why not have pictures of us jumping out of a plane oh and on top of that just for good measure have a camera man film it! People slowly started to arrive which meant more and more nerves around us. We were all in the same boat which made us feel better, for a few seconds at least. There were people there who were doing an 11000ft jump who had to wait until we had got back to do theirs, unlucky for some. Anyway why jump from 11000ft when 14000 is available?! I'm sure you will agree the waiting was painful. After everyone else had signed their lives away we each got kitted up, at this point it was starting to seem real, too real. My plan of trying not to think about it was working to some degree but not well enough for my liking. I was taken away to be filmed prior to the jump of my life, as you will at some point see this was an interesting speech, slightly lost for words I think is how it goes. Next was the all important training, that important my buddy (the guy I was going to be attached to) told me not to worry if I didn't take in what was being told to me as I didn't need to do anything but relax as while we were in the air we would practice the landing. I didn't see this to be such a good idea so I tried to listen but no sooner had the 5 minute training finished I had pretty much forgotten everything, oh well not to worry I was only abut ½ hour from jumping through the sky. All preparation done and ready to go, or not, just to add to our pain we had to wait for the pilot to turn up. After who knows how long, all I know is it felt like forever! We got all our gear and headed for the plane. There was us 2 and 3 other girls jumping and the plane was cosy to say the least, no seats just sit on the floor, with your knees up and sit in the person behinds legs!! I had said I didn't want to go last and the other 3 girls said they didn't want to go 1st or last, not that they got much choice, where you sat in the plane decided that. Obviously David didn't care!! We set off on our 'short' flight of 20 extremely long minutes. It was an interesting flight, we all felt a lot higher than we were and when the ground was getting smaller and smaller we realised it wouldn't be long until we were back on the ground, quickest and pretty much only way down being jump. From where I was sat I was going 5th and David would be going last. We arrived at 14000ft and no sooner did we have time to think about what was going to happen we were over the drop zone and the door was open, the 1st cameraman hanging on outside the plane along with the skydiver and her buddy sat on the side. Picture taken and without a blink of an eye they were gone, all you could hear was a whooshing noise of them disappearing into thin air. And then the next, and the next and then it was me, it had come so quick from the first person going I didn't have any time to take in what I was about to do, which looking back was definitely for the best. I said goodbye to my beloved, who kindly reminded me there was no refund so I would be going out, so with this I said I would see him on the ground, picture taken and I was gone, had no time to look down and see how far I was up which I am extremely pleased about as I would've probably freaked out just a little! So that was it I was gone, no asking are you ready to go, just a quick snap and tumbling I went. For the first few seconds I have no idea what I was thinking and what my body felt, I then realised what I was doing and that's when the screaming started!!! Lucky for my buddy he couldn't hear me as we were travelling that fast, otherwise he would probably have a few burst eardrums. While dropping the cameraman was holding on to us and floating around us getting a fair few shots in, before I knew it the parachute had been pulled and everything went quiet. My buddy asked me how it was and it was weird as it seemed so clear, not muffled at all. I can't remember what my response was but it was something along the lines of it was amazing and not half as scary as I thought it would be!! I just couldn't believe we had been falling for 60seconds it only felt like a few, it all went so quick. The rest of the decent took about 5 mins slowly drifting towards our landing point, MISSION BEACH! I didn't feel at all scary being so high up in just felt well actually I don't have words to describe it. The view was amazing, not a cloud in the sky and we could even see the schools of fish swimming below. Just to add to the scenery we had the Great Barrier Reef below us, we had now seen it from both angles, above and below! It was amazing to see the cameraman fall so quick, he left us just before we were about to pull the parachute so he could get a view of us opening it, to do this though he had to carry on freefalling and he was spinning upside down and in all directions while filming, he left it so late or so it looked to pull the parachute, it looked like he was nearly on the ground before it was pulled. While we were descending I had a go at navigating it, well kind of anyway, the buddy had hold of it as well I'm sure!! Don't think they would actually let us do it completely who knows where we would end up!!!! Only the slightest pull on one side made you change direction before you know it. After more breathtaking views it was time to practice the landing position, lift your legs up to your chest as much as you can and point your feet up, pretty difficult as your strapped in so tight. It was dependant on how we landed as to whether we came in and stood straight up or skid on your bum; I was hoping it wasn't the latter! It was then landing time, and it all happened so quick, I didn't think we were going to stop at one point and if we were it seemed we would only be stopping by landing on the person that came in before us, how wrong could I be, it was a perfect landing and as I hoped we landed and stood straight up!!! It was then a matter of finishing off the pics and video and waiting for the other half to come in, all I could see was a huge smile on his face. I had to move out of the way otherwise the parachute would've landed on me! We were both lost for words but knew what each other was trying to say, unless you've skydived yourself you will never be able to completely understand how it feels!! Everything was gathered up and we headed for the van to take us back to base. Our faces were tingling, which isn't really as surprise at the speed we had been travelling. It wasn't a long journey back and once back we wanted to go again. We checked where the best place to have something to eat would be around there as the photos and videos would take a bit to process and we were told Mission Beach (where we just landed) would be the best bet. So off we headed back down there, my first time to properly drive the campa. It felt weird driving again as I haven't really driven since we left and as it was an automatic and the indicators were on the other side it was interesting to say the least. Once back at the beach I was told to go on sit on the beach out of the way for a bit. I didn't object obviously! I was soon greeted by a box of strawberries along with strawberry champagne and I even got to have it in champagne flutes, plastic of course!!!!! After a different but gorgeous breakfast we got changed and went for a swim in the sea. It had to be sectioned off to ensure people didn't get stung as there were plenty of jellyfish around. The water was lovely and warm, just like being in the bath, we didn't want to get out but after about half an hour we thought we better had as we needed to head back and get the photos. We quickly called the office before heading back to check if they were ready which we were told by the time we got back they would be. Once there we looked at a few of the photos cringing at what are faces looked liked and watch the videos which were amazing. Unfortunately a few seconds of David's was lost but he got a free t-shirt and the bit of him tumbling out of the plane was perfect so not such a loss!! Obviously I didn't want to feel left out not having a t-shirt but didn't fancy paying over the odds for one so I kept mentioning it in hope they would want to give me it as a b'day present, which they did!! The woman asked which one I liked and which size I was and handed me the t-shirt while saying happy birthday, result! We headed back to cairns which was about a 1hr45min journey away, most of which I slept, I tell ya its draining jumping out of a plane, all the emotions and adrenaline, knocks you for six. We got back to the campsite and met up with Freddie and Mark, they had all of their stuff from the van which they had been trying t sell on a balcony of one of the en-suite cabins. I thought they must've sold it that day, but I couldn't understand why some of the stuff that was supposed to be in the van wasn't?? You guessed it Mr. Long was up to something again. He poked his head in to the cabin and said how nice it looked and I should have a look which I did and was greeted by more balloons on the bed!!! I just knew I was going t have the best night's sleep ever, air-conditioned and in a proper bed, with en-suite, pure luxury. The only problem was I knew I wouldn't want to go back to sleeping in the sweat box of a campervan!! We turned the air-con on straight away and then realised why Freddie and Mark hadn't put it on before, balloons and air-con don't go well together! We relaxed for a bit then got changed back into our swimming gear and headed for the lagoon in the town centre. We stayed there for an hour or so cooling down and deciding where we were going for something to eat that evening. We had a swim and went for a wonder to check the restaurants out; we thought buffet style would be the best bet. We found a restaurant and decided we would keep it in mind as an option. Once back at the campsite we got showered, in our lovely en-suite and thought it was probably best to go the buffet round the corner as we could walk to it. After skyping home we realised we wouldn't be able to go to the restaurant round the corner as it was too late so decided on the other option. We called a taxi of which we had to call again as they didn't turn up, apparently they had come and no one was there, likely story. We had the strangest taxi driver and couldn't wait to get out of the taxi, unlucky for Mark as he was the one sat in the front. We got sat down at the table and quickly got up again to start our feast. It was only 9pm and we were told it would be closing in abut 45mins-1hour, not like at home and it would be open til about 11? We didn't stay that long as the staff weren't the most pleasant and seemed to want to close up. We all felt a bit full to say the least, we hadn't even eaten that much it was just it had been so rushed. It wasn't the best of places but it was food. We then thought as it was my b'day we should go for a drink. So that's what we did, we had a walk round trying to settle our food at the same time and found a bar which was nice and quiet. Quiet we found out as they were soon closing; only enough time to get 1 drink in which wasn't really a problem as all we wanted to do was sleep. We were just exhausted. We got back to the campsite and headed straight for the cabin which was so cold, we had to turn the temp up a bit on the air-con. We just weren't used to this sort of luxury!!! We tried to Skype home again but the temperamental internet was down so we couldn't. To finish my birthday off in style I had a cake brought out to me of which I had to blow the big 21 candles out. This was a lot of effort as I had no energy left in me at all. Plus when I had skyped home I had a cake at the other end which I also had to blow the candles out on!!! It was a good job it was Claudia's bday as well otherwise they wouldve still been burning. We got settled and tucked in and as soon as our heads hit the pillow that was it, plenty of zzzzzz's kicking out. And that was my 21st in a nutshell. A busy day is an understatement and definitely the best day ever, one I will never forget. All I can say is as much as I wanted to knock 10 bells out of a certain someone when I read what I was doing that morning I can safely say it was worth it and I wouldn't change any of it. THANKS PANTS!!!!