April 23rd
This morning, I went skydiving.
I know, I know, I wouldn't have thought I would either. But it's Australia, and I'm sort of a different person here. Hopefully, in a good way.
I was terrified, but it was really too early in the morning for it to have an effect on me. We weren't really supposed to do it so soon after scuba diving because of some sort of pressure related thing, but we already booked it and no one was able to clearly tell us if our heads would explode or not, so we just did it.
About a month ago, when I was freaking out about going on this trip in the first place, a very wise friend of mine quoted some reassuring words from Dune for me.
I must not fear. Fear is the mind-killer. Fear is the little-death that brings total obliteration. I will face my fear. I will permit it to pass over me and through me. And when it has gone past I will turn the inner eye to see its path. Where the fear has gone there will be nothing. Only I will remain.
Despite having heard the litany against fear before (*cough* Jamie's away messages *cough*), Jay's incantation of it stuck with me. I kept uttering all that I could remember (the first two sentences) in my head all morning - while riding on the bus, getting my harness on, getting on the plane - until I jumped out.
Then, appropriately, I got "Free Fallin'" stuck in my head.
Skydiving, while pretty indescribable, was the coolest thing I've ever done and I highly recommended it to everyone who can. The first few seconds it was hard to breathe, but the free fall was such a rush, and gliding down to the ground was so serene. And I got to land on a beach AND see The Great Barrier Reef from the sky on the way down. Excellent day.
Yes, I landed here:
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| From Cairns |
My skid marks:
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| From Cairns |
Me, after landing:
After that was accomplished, I waited for Becca and Vilde to land. They did a great job. Becca even stood up on the sand without getting her bum wet. I was not so graceful.
This front page of the newspaper was on the back of the toilet door. I enjoyed:
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| From Cairns |
Once we were finished, we came back to Cairns (skydiving took place about an hour or two south of there) and we met up with Bernie. We decided to next head up to Mossman Gorge, which was recommended to us on our Whitsundays sailing trip.
It was gorgeous. Haha get it? Gorge-ous.
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| From Cairns |
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| From Cairns |
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| From Cairns |
We swam in the river for a bit, and then headed off to Port Douglas, which came highly recommended to me from Ms. Cindy. We tried to find a restaurant called "Going Bananas" but it had apparently shut down. We then drove and parked and wandered along the beautiful, classy streets of Port Douglas. It was a nice town. Tones from the Whitsundays trip said this would be the place for us to pick up a sugar daddy. He wasn't kidding.
We went to this cute little store with trinkets and jewelry called Imagine on one of the main streets. Cute stuff. We also peeked in at Nautilus, a place that was way too fancy for us in our cover-ups.
We then settled on a nice restaurant that wasn't too nice. I got some form of duck and a margarita. Yum.
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| From Cairns |
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| From Cairns |
After dinner, we headed off to Cape Tribulation, and we made it in time to catch the ferry, which took you not even a quarter of a mile across a river. I guess they didn't want to build a bridge.
We drove for what seemed like forever, but we finally made it to our hostel in Cape Trib. We ran into Olivia and Sabine again, which was crazy, and then we headed off to sleep.
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