Si's Year Out! (Plus Europe! Plus Morocco!): From 10 meters under sea level to 14,000ft above sea level in 4 days!

The next day I drove over to the Mission Beach area. The area encompasses South Mission Beach, Wongaling Beach, Mission Beach, Narragon Beach and Bingal Bay. I checked out South Mission Beach, which was beautiful and very deserted island-esq. While walking along I noticed that there were palm trees everywhere, with coconuts hanging from them. I was feeling thirsty so I knocked one down for a drink. I never knew this before but coconuts don't actually come off the tree looking like the round, hard, brown, hairy thing you see in coconut shys! They actually come off the tree in a big, smooth, seed-shaped casing. I spent ages pulling this casing apart (its not easy!) and finally got down to the inner coconut. Punched a hole in it and drank the juice, very refreshing!

For some reason I had had the worst nights sleep the previous night so decided that I'd stay in a hostel while I was at Mission Beach. I found a nice hostel in Wongaling Beach and spent most of the day lying in a hammock, reading a book, chiling out to the max! Two girls that I met at Cape Tribulation just happened to arrive that evening so we all got dinner and played some cards by the beach with some of the other guests.

Apart from completely chilling out, people come to Mission Beach to do one of two things - skydive (landing on the beach) and go whitewater rafting on the Tully River. I came to do both! The next day was my whitewater rafting on the tully river! I had to get up at 6:30am (!) for my pickup at 7am. There were 9 of us from mission beach and about 40 people coming down from Cairns, who had to pay an extra $10 for the privilege of the 2 hour bus ride (suckers!). We arrived at the top of the river and got suited up, lifejacket, helmet and paddle, and jumped into our inflatable boat! I've never done whitewater rafting before and was sure that there was no way we'd make it through some (almost all) of the rapids alive, let alone the right way up! It was an amazing day out and after 5 hours bouncing down the river I was aching all over but loved every minute of it!

The next day was the day of my 14,000ft skydive! I was supposed to be picked up at 1pm and had all my stuff packed up by 12.... the 1 hour wait was killing me but it finally passed.... So, I was waiting at the pickup point at 1pm.... at 1:30 I was still waiting. I never seem to have much luck with pickup times and when I called the company they said that I'd now be picked up at 3pm. That meant another 2 hours of waiting! To kill some time I went for a skate at a small skate park just by the hostel. I was talking to a kid who lived in the area and mentioned that I was doing a skydive. Helpfully, he told me that about 3 weeks ago some people had jumped out just as a storm blew in and missed their landing site by about 100 meters, crashing into houses, telegraph poles and even landing in swamps....and all ending up in hospital. Cheers kid!!!

So, I finally got picked up at 3pm, got harnessed up and walked over to the plane. Incase you don't know, I've done a skydive before, for my 18th birthday. I've always said its the best thing I've done in my life so was definitely up for doing one in Australia. As I looked at the tiny plane we had to fit 10 people into I began to wonder if my enjoyment of the first dive came from the fact that I was young and foolish! It seemed to take ages to get to 14,000ft....not helped by the fact that I was in a plane about as big as my car with another 9 people! I was the forth jumper out of five (all were tandem dives), and seeing the first three pairs jump out was the only bit that was really scary (up until then I had just been really excited).

Once it was my turn to go we scrambled over to the door and sat with my legs dangling out. I'm sure the guy said he was gonna count to three so I was getting ready for that when I suddenly realised we were falling out the plane! I instantly forgot to cross my arms and whatever I was supposed to do with my legs and was moulded into position by my instructor. After I'd returned to reality I was mesmorised by the amazing view all the way along the coast. There was sandy beach, deep-blue water and beautiful little islands as far as the eye could see! The freefall was only 60 seconds but it seemed like 10 minutes.... The guy pulled the parachute and suddenly we were just suspended in the air with no feeling of falling at all! I was even allowed to use the ropes to drive the chute left and right and do a few spins in the air! The tide was right in so there was only a tiny bit of beach to land on but the guy hit it perfectly. I didn't remember landing with so much speed the last time I dived, but the landing was smooth and we skidded across the sand on our feet until we came to a stop! And just like that it was over! Skydiving is so much fun, everyone should try and do one, especialy if you get the chance at a beautiful place like the beaches of Australia!

Next stop Airlie Beach again for some sailing....