I jumped out of an aeroplane yesterday!!!

Oh My God that was so brilliant. Some cyber mates wanted to do a skydive and as it's something I have always wanted to do, I decided to join them. We should have done it on Saturday but similar to the UK it threw it down all day and rain stopped play - I thought we had escaped that sort of nonsense!

Anyway they were able to fit us in on Sunday, so bright and not so early - about 9:30, we drove from home all the way up to Redcliffe which is North of Brisbane. The sun was shining and the sky blue and all well with the world - well except Heather who decided she was absolutely terrified for me - awwww bless!

There should have been 9 of us but 3 had something already planned for Sunday, so there was only six. We met up on Suttons Beach, Redcliffe at 12:30, with Kevan, Heather and Abs munching their way through tubs of chips - I only had a couple in case I decided to leave my stomach anywhere! Turned out to be a good move!

As they were fitting us in, two went with three strangers, whilst the rest of us waited for them to come down. Finally after what seemed ages it was our turn to harness up
have our instructions and leave for the aerodrome. Blimey the plane was tiny! I assumed it was going to be small, but because we were able to see it from the ground when the others jumped, thought it would be slightly bigger than it was. Enough room for 10 of us (five jumpers with their parachute men) to sit on the floor very closely and me the only female!

We took off, and it seemed to take ages to get up to 14,000 feet although I think it was only about 25 minutes, great views though and the instructors all just laid back on their parachutes and had a kip! Very strange but not at all nervous or worried, just really calm but excited.

We went through a final instruction, the flimsy door was slid open and the first guy crawled to the opening and suddenly he was gone, then it was my turn. Got to the door and didn't even get a chance to look out before I was plummeting seriously fast to the ground - it was fantastic. No feeling like that ever! It was absolutely freezing, and I couldn't work out if I was breathing or not because of the g forces. Worked out I was breathing in, but unable to breathe out and with the harness as tight as it was, felt like I was blowing up like a balloon. All this time Mark (my buddy) was videoing me but I was so busy having my mind blown, wasn't really aware of it.

After 65 seconds of falling, Mark tapped me on the shoulder to tell me he was opening the parachute and suddenly felt like someone above me jerked me up so hard, the harness was cutting me in half lengthwise - ouch!

We then had five minutes of floating gently down to earth. I was expecting the same complete silence you get when gliding, but it was really noisy with the wind rushing past, and parts of the parachute being turned into the wind. I could see all the way up to the Sunshine Coast, and down past the islands and Brisbane, stunning views.

Mark decided to do some cool moves but to me it felt like I was sitting on a bobbing boat and as you know that is not my favourite place to be so I had to ask very nicely if he could possibly stop doing that!! Finally came in to land back on the beach I had only left 45 - 50 minutes earlier. Such a gentle landing, hardly aware of it. What I was aware of was the moment my feet touched the sand, my stomach decided it did indeed want to empty itself and I started heaving, but nothing happened thank god although Mark did have the goodness to stop videoing at that point. Anyway got the harness off and immediately felt better. Mark said it was the adrenalin and it took people different ways. I think it was the balloon feeling of air in me, after the freefall and the tightness of the harness. A girl took over the videoing - will hopefully be able to put it on here so everyone can see it - it's wicked and I have a very attractive hairstyle at the end - not!

The jump lasted 6 minutes but it has taken about 24 hours to actually come down off the high. Can't stop grinning, although I am shattered. Good job it's school holidays and I didn't have to get up early!