After a crappy weather day on the Monday, we packed up our things and headed back to Sydney on the Tuesday. We had booked an Airbnb in an apartment block in Homebush because it had a pool and we were hoping for some last minute sun. It didn’t take long to get down to Sydney, about a couple of hours.
I had felt really upset about coming home on the Monday, so I booked Nathan and I a skydive as we were driving down. It seemed like a good idea! After an epic 8 months away, go out doing something crazy like throwing ourselves out of a plane. I’ll get to that later.
On our way down to Sydney, we dropped at the airport to enquiry about whether we had to actually change the tyre properly or whether we could get away with just putting the spare on. The bad news was we had to get it changed otherwise they’d charge us the price of the tyre plus a $60 admin fee!! Joke. Then we stopped at Manly to grab out last cheap Tuesday kfc and sat admiring the beautiful beach for the last time. They even had a nice big Christmas tree to keep us feeling slightly festive! We were able to check in early to our Airbnb but my god what a nightmare check in was! Firstly, the road it’s on doesn’t exist. Then it turns out there were four apartment blocks to one address. The underground car park has no signal so I couldn’t message to find out what the parking space number was unless we were outside. Once we had the spot, someone else was in it. We found a visitor space and parked there before lugging all our stuff up to repack one final time. The underground car park is connected to all four apartment blocks and had two levels! So as we exited and went to floor two, we ended up in block 3 when we needed number 4. That meant going back down the lift, walking to another lift in the car park and going back up. It was a total utter nightmare it really was. Still, luggage dumped, we then tried to find the pool, which was located back in apartment block 3. Aaaaaaaaaaaaaargh!!!After eventually finding it, we sat there for about a few hours until surprise surprise, the big black clouds began to cover the sky! Aaaaaargh!!! Whilst we sat there we got hold of our host who came over to meet us, bringing his friend to translate as a) we still needed to park somewhere and b) we had to use the key fob to get everywhere and he said we could use the pool till late on the Thursday when we checked out. So, a) he gave us his space in the end and b) turns out he has two keys! Finally sorted, we could enjoy our time by the pool ready for our epic final day. Noodles it was for dinner and a film before heading to bed ready for our alarm to go off Wednesday morning. At 6am. Up we got, putting on our ‘gym gear’ as I call it. I couldn’t stomach anything to eat or drink for fear of throwing up as we fell out the plane.
We didn’t even need to get up that early as there wasn’t much traffic on the road. We left about 730 and arrived about 9, ready for our 930am jump. The office so to speak was located in a field by the beach at Wollongong. Skydive Australia has many locations you can jump from throughout the country, as well as 6000ft and 15000ft jumps. We had opted for the 15000ft jump. I was petrified! Literally petrified. We went in, filled out our disclaimers and bought the photo and video package to collect once we’d jumped. Then we were put into groups of which we were group B, which meant we had even longer to wait. That only added to the knots in my stomach and the nausea and sheer terror I was feeling. Once group A had got geared up, met their instructors and gone to the airstrip in the bus, it was time for us to get geared up. Harness on, trousers on, banana (life jacket) on we were then shown key positions.
Exiting the plane, freefalling and landing. The fear building still with every minute closer. Eventually, our instructors came out to meet us. Mine was called Cormac and was very lovely. He checked all my harness, went over the positions, filmed me on the GoPro right from the start to! “How are you feeling?” “What brings you here today?” Are just two of the questions he asked me. I was getting more and more scared. What the hell had I done?????!!!!!!!
Before long we were on the bus going to the airfield. There we encountered more waiting and then we heard the familiar sound of the planes engine. It was only a small plane and there was no backing out now. We got on the plane, practically sat on each other’s lap, facing away from the pilot and towards the roll down door. At one point I ended up sitting on Cormac’s lap as he attached us to one another and made sure we were extremely secure.More filming took place as we climbed higher and higher. The views from the plane were spectacular. You could see all along the coastline. It was mesmerising. Once we hit 15,000 feet, the door opened and within seconds, the first guy was out. There was a scream then silence. Now I was like “**** I cant do this!! **** I cant do this” over and over as everyone was just falling out the plane! You’d think there’d be more than a few seconds between us but no. Nathan went before me then Cormac manoeuvred us to the door.
“Legs over the edge and under the plane!!” “Head back on me!!”
“Aaaargh…..”
“Oh my god this is amaaaaaaaaazing!!!”
That’s pretty much how the next three seconds went. I was absolutely bricking it right up the minute we fell out the plane and I can safely say, no sooner had a millisecond passed as we were freefalling, all the fear dissipated and it was the BEST feeling in the world. It was like complete and total freedom. Falling through the clouds being able to see every thing around you.The views were just out of this world! The only downside was where I hadn’t eaten or drank anything, I found myself hungry and my mouth was so dry my top lip kept sticking to my teeth! I can’t fully describe the feeling of just falling but it was just so incredible and so freeing. I can truly say it was the best thing I have ever done.To think I was so petrified, genuinely scared to death of doing it but that whole bunch of feelings turn into sheer joy!! Cormac even let me steer the parachute on my own! That was the worst part when the parachute opened at about 3000 feet to go. It opened and it felt like the harness tightened between your legs and well yeah, I still can’t complain. He was recording it all too! As we came into land I had to get my legs up so we could slide on our bums. That just proves how inflexible I am haha!!As we landed I think I had the biggest smile on my face anyone has ever had! The instructors detached themselves from us and gathered their parachutes as they bundled us all back into the bus and got back to the office in about five minutes. There we waited about half an hour for our photos, video and certificates before driving back to Sydney. Meanwhile, the instructors got another parachute and got their next jumpers and got back in the bus! There really wasn’t any time between their jumps!It was a good job we jumped when we did as no sooner had we began leaving Wollongong did we suddenly encounter a hail storm with monsoon type rains! After a quick stop at dominos it was time to get the tyre changed before heading back to Sydney for our last night away 💔.
