One year as Australian : The weekend of a lifetime

Today I have been in Australia for 315 days. I still haven’t written one single column in English, which I apologize for. However the reason being my friends and family at home, who is one of the main reasons I’m writing this blog. But that’s not an excuse and I thought now was time for an English version.

Last Friday I came home from school and called my Rotary Chairman, Sandy, who was the person I needed permission from to be able to go Skydiving. Since the beginning of my exchange I have wanted to try Skydiving. Originally we were five exchange students planning on doing it. We all wanted it to be in the end of our exchange, so that this could be one of our last memories together from this year. Situations change and now we were two students left still interested in doing it. Sandy gave us the permission and 24 hours later I went skydiving!

Flying to Mission Beach

This has probably been one of the best weekends and most exiting weekends for me. Saturday morning my host dad and I drove to the airport in Atherton (yes, Atherton does have an airport, it surprised me as well). From there we flew to Mission Beach, which is a two hours drive, but only about half an hour by plane. I have never been in a plane smaller than one of the usual charter planes, so I found it so cool, when Jon opened the door to the sheet and inside there was two small two seated airplanes. One of them was Jon, the other one of the first once he ever built.

On the way to the airport

Jon

The two planes

The Atherton Airport

Ready to go flying

Before we flew to Mission Beach, Jon flew me around the Tablelands and showed me some of the places I have stayed and been. It was amazing to be able to see the whole area from above and I totally understand why people choose airplanes as hobby. The weather was beautiful and the view was amazing. I had my camera on my lap, but I kept forgetting taking photos, because I was too busy watching the landscape going past. On the trip down we could hear some of the people from the skydiving plane screaming over the radio.

The Atherton Tablelands

Airplane selfie

Lake Tinaroo

My home no. 3 Elspeth and Graeme´s house (The one with green woof)

Atherton State High School

Another selfie

I will defiantly never become a pilot

Beach near Innisfaill

When we arrived at Tully Airport, Kelly and Connor were waiting for us. We parked the plane and drove with them to Mission Beach. In Mission Beach we dropped Connor off at the sailing club, where he had training, which was the reason we were down there. Kelly, Jon and I went and got lunch straight on the beach. At 2 pm, we drove up to the skydiving place where we met with Ania and her host family. I was so excited and scared at the same time. We watched the safety video, walked down stairs, got ready and jumped in the bus. It was funny to see how the instructors were all relaxed and almost bored compared to us, who were all excited and didn’t know what to do or not do. I hadn’t talked to Ania for a while, so the 20 minutes drive from the shop back to the airport, went a lot faster than expected.

Mission Beach

Skydiving!

Ania and I excited and ready to go...

When we arrived at the airport in Tully, I was beginning to realise what was about to happen. This was the second time today I went inside a smaller airplane. This one was different tough. We were sitting in two lines each in front of our instructors. There was no wall between the pilot and the passengers and the door was a thin plastic roll up type of door placed just next to my feet. I was the second last person to go inside the plane, which made me the second person to jump out of the plane again.

My instructor pointed out on his watch, when we were half the way up at 7000ft. I looked out of the window. We were a lot higher than I was earlier this morning with Jon and this was a lot higher than I had ever expected. On the other hand the higher the longer fall, which I guess is a good thing. However I wouldn’t know as I had never tried this before, but that was what I was thinking about anyways.

From then on everything went so fast. I got attached to my instructor’s parachute, the plane almost stopped and one of the instructors opened the door. The air was freezing cold and at that stage I was very pleased to be the second jumper. The first jumper went down. She was screaming, but just 2 sec after the scream disappeared as she disappeared under the plane. We slide down on the floor next to the door, the instructor turned around, so I was half hanging out of the plane. I would wish we could have stayed there for an extended period of time. It was quite cool to be hanging out of the plane, looking down at the beach you could hardly discern. You were safe, but you still got the feeling of floating in the sky. It was quite an amazing feeling. And then it happened, he jumped and we were falling. I was really happy I did not have to make the decision about when to jump out from 14000 ft. (4.3 km). It did not seem like we were falling. It was weird. It was more like floating in a weightless condition. The air was really soft.

Me under the green parachute

Ania under the blue

Me again

The one minute of freefall seemed very short, but long at the same time. It was beautiful. I could not stop smiling. I was trying to wave to the GoPro that was attached to my instructor, but the wind resistance was too high to be able to wave normally. Previous I have been talking to a lot of people who all had tried it. One thing all of them mentioned was that it is an experience you can’t describe to people who haven’t tried it themselves. It is something you have to experience yourself.

When my instructor pulled the parachute I was kind of relieved, but sad. This meant the “fun” and extreme part was over and now it was time to enjoy the rest of the ride, which I did. The weather was beautiful. On the beach below us, you could see all the small dots of people waiting for us to come down.

My host mum on the beach waiting for us

When we landed on the beach I was so happy. Not because we landed, but because I had had the best 8 minutes. Jon, Kelly and two of Ania’s host families were taking photos and watching us. I think we had the most spectators of the group, which I really appreciate. During this year I have not had my own friends and family and every time we have been doing things and experiencing stuff it has usually been just exchange student, which has been great. However I have really realized how good and useful parents can be at taking photos and carrying bags. When people take out a whole afternoon to watch us and “carry our bags” it really means a lot. Thank you!

Me landed and safe

Ania

Lots of hugging

More hugging

Happiest girl in the world

20 minutes was not enough...

From the beach we went back to the store with all our equipment. Unfortunately the 20 minutes we had in the bus on the way to the airport were far from enough time for us to catch up on the new thing that had happened since Safari, so I went home to Ania’s host families place for the evening.

Ania and I enjoyed a cold coke and went for a walk on the beach to try and calm down the adrenaline. We were both so happy. It felt like we had been running a marathon, but still had infinitely remaining energy. I would go again at any time and as many times as possible. It was an amazing experience I always will remember and it is definitely not the last time I’m jumping out of an airplane.

Walking on the beach

Ania’s host parents lives straight on the beach, so after dinner we all made a campfire and enjoyed the stars. Ania and I stayed on the beach for most of the night. At that time I did not wanted to leave this country at all, not even for a visit home.

Sunset and claer sky

Ania's lovely host family

Ania, I and the fire

The next morning Jon had left me a message. He invited Ania to come for a flight. We went out to the airport and this time it was Ania’s turn to go flying in the small plane.

Ania ready for more flying

After their flight I went back to Mission Beach with Jon, where we were watching Connor sailing. Later Kelly drove us back to the airport and we flew home. The weather had changed and wasn’t as good and clear as it had been the day before, but this just made the trip even more exiting.