We woke at 6am to go skydiving today! I started feeling a little nervous but that got over taken by excitement. We crossed the road to the Skydive Cairns office and it was scary how much we had to sign our lives away.......'the company takes no responsibility for death or serious injury'etc etc.
No one back home expected me to jump out of a plane as im a nervous flyer and i've always been a chicken and wont even go on rollercoasters...but i feel like once i do this i'll be invincible and able to conquer anything :D
It was sooo fast how everything happened...i paid my $480 for the jump photos and dvd and was assigned my jumping partner Coops. Another typical hot aussie so that calmed any nerves i may have had. If i die jumping out of a plane at least my last dying moments i will be attached to a hot man hahhaaa! We got on the little rickety plane and started rising pretty quickly. Coops was interviewing me for the dvd and taking photos while on the plane and showing me on his wrist watch thing how far up we were.....1000 ft looked really high then he told me we were going another 13,000 higher! 14,000ft is legally the highest you can jump before the lack of oxygen becomes an issue. Next thing i knew the plane door was open and the first girl was dangling her legs over the side! We jumped really quickly go, go, go, go, go then it was me! As i dangled my legs out the plane i didnt really have time to think then i jumped! For some reason i though fallnig would be really serene and calm. However you fall faster than anythnig you can imagine! The first 20 seconds i could not get my breath at all and puffed away as hard as i could then eventually i caught it and was fine! We were still free falling at this point and it was amazing.......i kept smilnig for the camera and admiring the clouds getting closer and closer to me! It literally felt like we were flying especially once you open you arms out after the jump out the plane. I dont remember doing thsi but apparently i dug my nails into coops really hard when he started flippnig and spinning me right as i jumped out the plane.....i think it was too much too soon but once i got into the swing of it i got him to spin me again it was awesome! 60seconds went by pretty fast and next thing i know the parachute opens. It was amazing because i could fully appreciate the views from up there of cairns.....it was a lush sunny day aswell so it was perfect! Coops handed me the parachute ropes and i was in the driving seat....he told me to pull down on my right one really hard and we started circling over cairns. It was actually one of the best experiences of my life. It took about 5/10 minutes alltogether but was the best $500 i've spent ever! We came into land and everyone was sooo chuffed! Coops finished interviewing me for the dvd and i was soooo chuffed about what i'd just done!
One girl Ashley felt abit nauseous after the jump but everyone else was fine! We got back on the bus and back to the skydive place in cairns...the group of ISV after us were at the point of signing their lives away so we were just reassuring them that they'd be fine and how amazing it was!
We went for a celebratory breakfast in cairns city centre and i had my usual raisen toast mmmmmm :) then we went to the nearby mall and me and lou got manicures and pedicures! It was sooo relaxing, especially after what we'd just done :) We went back to the hostel and sunbathed by the pool and had a few sneaky 1pm vodkas to congratulate ourselves on our achievements of not dying hahaaa!Then me, Briana, Bridget and Lou went for a meal in P.J O'briens bar for lunch thne went back to the hostel to prepare for our night out woohoooo! We had a load of free drinks vouchers and free entrance vouchers from the party bus night so i litereally didnt buy a drink all night :) I had quite a bit to drink and was suffering the next day before we went white water rafting uh ohhh......
Monday, 16 August 2010
Sunday 8th August.......Great Barrier Reef
Woke at 7am today......biggest lie in i've had in like 2/3 weeks. Our itinery out here is crazy its like 6am wake ups every morning...out partying everynight and doing a million and one amazing experiences in the days.
We had been warned that the Reef would be choppy but no-one was expecting it to be as bad as it was! I've never seen soooo many chinese people throw up in one place before! They were all hurling into sick bags or over the side of the boat! To be fair i dont get motion sickness and that boat was really bad.......that everyone started feeling a bit sick towards the end of the hour ride out to the reef. Mainly because there was sooo many people making disgusting sick noises. You literally could stand up on the boat and if you tried walking around you got thrown into other people.
But the ride was worth it......we got out to the reef, past idyllic paradise islands and dove into the sea. It was AMAZING!!! We saw sea turtles, little nemo fish, a massive wally fish which was literally the same size as me, but completely harmless and loads of schools of bright coloured angel fish, stripey zebra fish and parrot fish.
We stayed out on a platoon for about 4 hours and they gave us lunch which was a chinese kibnd of meal of rice,noodles etc whichw as nice. After lunch me and Lou went on a glass bottom boat trip around the reef, but to be honest we saw more in the water rather than on a boat but it was still good.
I took loads of photos with my underwater camera and bought a few the professional photographer took aswell.
We were knackered on the ride back so sat below deck and fell asleep......i think we run on adrenaline out here of all the fab activities we're doing coz we go out everynight drinking and get like 2/3 hours sleep until we have to wake up for the next activity the next day! Its amazing though!
Im skydiving tomorrow at 7am...and i am surprising calm about doing it! If its my time to go its my time......at least i'll die flying hahaaa! Im more excited than nervous and cant wait to actually say i've jumped 14,000ft out of a plane in australia :D
We had been warned that the Reef would be choppy but no-one was expecting it to be as bad as it was! I've never seen soooo many chinese people throw up in one place before! They were all hurling into sick bags or over the side of the boat! To be fair i dont get motion sickness and that boat was really bad.......that everyone started feeling a bit sick towards the end of the hour ride out to the reef. Mainly because there was sooo many people making disgusting sick noises. You literally could stand up on the boat and if you tried walking around you got thrown into other people.
But the ride was worth it......we got out to the reef, past idyllic paradise islands and dove into the sea. It was AMAZING!!! We saw sea turtles, little nemo fish, a massive wally fish which was literally the same size as me, but completely harmless and loads of schools of bright coloured angel fish, stripey zebra fish and parrot fish.
We stayed out on a platoon for about 4 hours and they gave us lunch which was a chinese kibnd of meal of rice,noodles etc whichw as nice. After lunch me and Lou went on a glass bottom boat trip around the reef, but to be honest we saw more in the water rather than on a boat but it was still good.
I took loads of photos with my underwater camera and bought a few the professional photographer took aswell.
We were knackered on the ride back so sat below deck and fell asleep......i think we run on adrenaline out here of all the fab activities we're doing coz we go out everynight drinking and get like 2/3 hours sleep until we have to wake up for the next activity the next day! Its amazing though!
Im skydiving tomorrow at 7am...and i am surprising calm about doing it! If its my time to go its my time......at least i'll die flying hahaaa! Im more excited than nervous and cant wait to actually say i've jumped 14,000ft out of a plane in australia :D
Sat 7th August......I LOVE cairns : )
Cairns is AMAZINGGGGG!!!!
Ouyr hotel is like a party hotel in Ibiza and it has its own bar where all the locals and backpackers all come for cheap drinks so its THE place to be for a night out! Its got a pool, spa and restaurant...happy days!
Me and the girls were all dancing on tables in The Woolshed bar last night which was sooo much fun, however felt pretty rough waking up at like 6.30am this mornnig for breakfast and our orientation meeting! I loved my volunteer project group but its soooo nice being with loads of other ISV people now....should be a fun trip!
Our adventure tour leader is called Trys and he is a typical aussie....dark skin, shaved head, really good looking and cool! Im pretty sure all the girls are in love with him already!
We played a couple of introducing ourselves games and had to reinact a freeze frame of the funniest thing that happened to us on project. My group renacted us playing 'bouncing and dancing' around the fire on our last night in Calga and the Wildlife Park.
We then boarded the bus and went to Tujupaki Aboriginal Park. The park was run by generation os the aboriginal tribe and try to educate people about aboriginal life, it was really interesting and they showed us a few documentary films, painted our faces, learnt to dance and sing their songs.It was really good, but i was abit hungover from last night so was nearly falling asleep n the films. After the aborignal park we went to a reef teach because we are snorkelling in the Great Barrier Reef tomorrow. They taught us all about the fish and coral we will see out on the reef so was interesting.
We all bought tickets for a party bus/bar crawl around cairns tonight which should be fun!
It was a red london bus with music blasting and stripper poles on it to dance around.we went to 5/6 bars around cairns and in every bar we had to play drinking games, my game was a dance of and had to do a micheal jackson dance for a minute.....was kind of embarressing at first but id had a few drinks by then so enjoyed it! The photographer that night was from south wales (cwmbran) so was funny meeting him, he's the first welsh person i've met out here so far!
Was such a fun night, and free drinks are sooooo easy to come by here :)
Ouyr hotel is like a party hotel in Ibiza and it has its own bar where all the locals and backpackers all come for cheap drinks so its THE place to be for a night out! Its got a pool, spa and restaurant...happy days!
Me and the girls were all dancing on tables in The Woolshed bar last night which was sooo much fun, however felt pretty rough waking up at like 6.30am this mornnig for breakfast and our orientation meeting! I loved my volunteer project group but its soooo nice being with loads of other ISV people now....should be a fun trip!
Our adventure tour leader is called Trys and he is a typical aussie....dark skin, shaved head, really good looking and cool! Im pretty sure all the girls are in love with him already!
We played a couple of introducing ourselves games and had to reinact a freeze frame of the funniest thing that happened to us on project. My group renacted us playing 'bouncing and dancing' around the fire on our last night in Calga and the Wildlife Park.
We then boarded the bus and went to Tujupaki Aboriginal Park. The park was run by generation os the aboriginal tribe and try to educate people about aboriginal life, it was really interesting and they showed us a few documentary films, painted our faces, learnt to dance and sing their songs.It was really good, but i was abit hungover from last night so was nearly falling asleep n the films. After the aborignal park we went to a reef teach because we are snorkelling in the Great Barrier Reef tomorrow. They taught us all about the fish and coral we will see out on the reef so was interesting.
We all bought tickets for a party bus/bar crawl around cairns tonight which should be fun!
It was a red london bus with music blasting and stripper poles on it to dance around.we went to 5/6 bars around cairns and in every bar we had to play drinking games, my game was a dance of and had to do a micheal jackson dance for a minute.....was kind of embarressing at first but id had a few drinks by then so enjoyed it! The photographer that night was from south wales (cwmbran) so was funny meeting him, he's the first welsh person i've met out here so far!
Was such a fun night, and free drinks are sooooo easy to come by here :)
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