At the airport, as we signed our lives away, we met Lauren and Avery, as well as Avery’s sister, and another friend, Tom. The eight of us were going to jump out of the plane together. There was a bit of confusion, which involved Kelly, Steve, Eva, and I driving our station wagon about 20 minutes to the landing site at Mission Beach, then taking a bus back to Tully. We were supposed to hang out at the beach and have lunch there, because the rest of our group was taking a bus there to hang out, but we accidentally went right back to the airport and just had to sit around hungry for a few hours, and we didn’t have any food or anything because it was all in our car at Mission Beach.
But finally, we were all harnessed up and sent to board our plane. There were no seats in the plane, so we had to sit in two rows, basically straddling each other. The diver that I was attached to was named Ben, and he was very friendly and laid back. I wasn’t very nervous at all to begin with, but I’m sure Ben’s personality helped with that. When the plane took off, the divers left the door to the plane open! It was a little bit disconcerting. The air coming in was cold. Ben had a watch on his wrist that showed the altitude, and it was crazy to watch how high into the air we climbed. 4,000 feet in the air seemed extremely high, but we went all the way to 14,000! When we finally reached 14,000 feet, the scariest part was watching the first couple of people jump out of the plane. Avery’s sister, Kelsey, was first, and I just remember seeing her face as the pair fell out upside down. I was also amazed at how quickly it all happened: each pair jumped right after the other! I was the fifth person to jump out. Ben and I tumbled out of the plane for a little bit before he pulled the tiny parachute that stabilizes you. I may have had my eyes closed for the first part, or maybe it was just too disconcerting to realize what I was seeing, but I’m sure we were upside down at one point. We then proceeded to fall for a full 60 seconds—from 14,000 to 4,000 feet—before Ben pulled the parachute. I was really calm for the whole fall. I had bet Steve that if I didn’t scream, he would have to buy me dinner. Well, he bought me dinner. I didn’t even have an adrenaline rush! It was just the sea air soaring into my lungs and the ocean coming close and close. I guess it took my breath away a little at first, but as soon as I got used to the falling feeling and began to settle into it, Ben pulled the parachute. He began to make turns with it, but I asked him to stop because I get motion sickness. A benefit of not turning was that we got to be up in the air much longer, just gliding down to earth. (Turning the chute makes you come down faster.) At one point, Kelly sailed by, right below me. It was so strange to be in the middle of the air and close enough to talk to somebody. I felt like I could put my feet down on top of her parachute.
I was glad that I got to stay up in the air longer. I was the last person to land. When we jumped, I had been told to look toward the horizon instead of straight down so I could see more, but I had completely forgotten to do that. This extra time allowed me to really soak in the view—mostly the ocean, but also the beach and rainforest. It looked like we were going to land in the ocean, but we swung down onto the beach where everyone was waiting. We all hung out on the beach in the sun for an hour or two before we said our goodbyes to Avery, Lauren, and the rest, and hopped back into our station wagon.
When we left Mission Beach, I drove for the first time. It was easier than I thought it would be. The main thing to be careful about is hugging the left side of the road, but we all put on our wipers instead of our signal a couple of times. I drove into Cardwell—the same place I had stopped at to and from Townsville on the Greyhound bus. The sun was setting behind the forest, and the sky was absolutely beautiful over the water and Hitchenbrook Island. I walked out onto the pier to take some photos, and called Russell and Ian to make plans for the next day in Townsville. We bought a few groceries for dinner, and then continued driving to Wallaman Falls.
The roads to Wallaman were long, empty, and dark. Twice while I was driving, the headlights on the car went out completely when I had the brights on. The first time, when I turned the brights off, the headlights went back on immediately, so I decided to just drive with my hand on the signal so I could turn them off immediately if it happened again. However, the second time it happened, the lights remained off for a good six seconds after I had turned the brights off! It was super dangerous, so we decided to just not use them. I had to drive up the windy mountain to the top of Wallaman Falls without them. At one point, Kelly shone her flashlight out of the window, and it shone further ahead than our headlights did!
We set up camp in the dark again. The sky was very starry and absolutely beautiful, but it was cold on top of the tablelands. We cooked pasta in the dark and went to bed. In the morning, there was dew everywhere. The sun began to warm things up when it rose over the trees, and we had breakfast and packed up the car. We did a short walking track through the rainforest to some granite rock pools, then drove to the lookout point for Wallaman Falls, the tallest waterfall in Australia at 268 meters. The gorge was immense. We felt like we were at the Grand Canyon, it was so big. We didn’t have time to walk to the bottom of the falls, which would have been nice, but the view was still amazing. It was nice to just relax and be in nature for a little while after being in Cairns and doing work for so long.
After enjoying the falls, we got back in the station wagon to continue our journey. Next stop: Townsville.
No comments:
Post a Comment