Tuesday 21st August 2007

For the whole time we've been away on this trip, i've been going on and on (like I do), about doing a skydive... Today the alarm woke us up at about 8.30am because we wanted to have some breakfast before we went to Peter Pan's (a company where such things can be arranged).

When we went in at about 10am, the girl behind the desk said she wasn't sure if the company was jumping today - because she'd received a severe weather warning - saying there was bad weather hitting the South-East coast of Australia - and it was due in Rainbow beach this afternoon. When she could see I was upset (I gave her my sad eyes), she rang the company and they said that some people had gone up and that I was welcome to go on a stand-by list. All I had to do was come back at 1pm...

We left Peter Pan's, and took a nice walk along the beach. The weather this morning was BEAUTIFUL - there wasn't a cloud in the sky, so we did some sunbathing and then came back to our hostel, where we got our books and magazines and then lay by the pool reading.

FINALLY, 1pm rolled around and we walked to Peter Pan's and... the girl behind the desk said it was fine - I could jump... Yippee! What happened next, will stay with me forever. As I was paying, Nikki piped up saying she would like to do it too - my jaw nearly hit the floor (it's been hard enough getting her to let me do it, let alone get her to join me!!)

With BOTH OF US booked in for 2.30pm we came back to our hostel, because Nikki wanted to write her diary... saying that she loved her Mum and Dad, and that Katie (her little sister) could have her Prada sunglasses (if anything happened to her). In no time it was after 2pm, so we headed over to Dingos, where the skydivers were picking us up...

After filling out all of our forms, it was time to go - and Nikki was not happy - she was absolutely petrified! The whole of the short journey to the airfield she was sulking. Then, when she saw the plane, (which only had one seat: the pilots - the rest of us had to sit on the floor in the back), she was almost sick!.

Before we knew it, we were in the plane, and after it had taken off from the field (which didn't have a proper runway), we were soaring up into the sky. When we'd climbed pretty high, Nikki asked if we were ready to jump yet? But the guy said 'No' - we were only at 3,000 feet - and we were jumping from 14,000!

After 20 minutes we'd reached our jump height and Nikki's instructor opened the door. I have to admit - I was soo proud of Nikki! Once she was at this point she didn't make any fuss (she later admitted that it was because she was on her best behavior). In the blink of an eye, Nikki (my little stunt-wife) and her instructor had swung their legs out of the plane, Nikki said how terrified she was... and then they were gone... aaaaarrrrrggggghhhhh!

Straight away, I was shuffled into position and my legs were hanging out the side. My instructor stood up on the wheel, dived forward... and we were racing Nikki to the beach. We fell for about 65 seconds, at a speed of about 220kmph. After this the parachute opened and I could breath again. We spotted Nikki in the distance, and the two instructors manouvered us into a position where we could talk to each other - about 4,000 feet above the floor - we were buzzing!

We parachuted down to the beach and Nikki came down about a minute after me and,when I jumped up to give her a cuddle, she burst into tears... i've never seen her so happy. We were both on a massive high - I was so pleased that Nikki did it with me.

The rest of the day is a bit of a blur! We hung around our hostel - telling everyone who would listen about our jump, and then at about 6pm the skydive team dropped off our dvd (it's of my fall - but you get to see Nikki looking scared, falling out and then landing safely). When we watched that on the laptop we were on a high again and rushed out to ring our Mums. We then rang Emma to tell her and to talk about her trip to Perth (yippee). Afterwards, Nikki cooked us pasta and pesto for our tea and then we sat in the bar having a well deserved beer!

Today's lesson - jumping out of planes is AWESOME!