Mission Beach is located midway between Townsville and Cairns. For many it’s the gateway to visiting Dunk island which lies 4 km off the Australian east coast opposite the town of Mission Beach itself.I chose to stay inland at the Treehouse Hostel, now the Jackaroo Treehouse in Mission Beach. Set in the beautiful world heritage tropical rainforest the giant treehouse features large open living areas, a commercial kitchen, spacious rooms and a sundeck overlooking the pool area with hammocks and sun lounges. All of this comes with the lush green tropical rainforest as a backdrop.
From here it’s a short walk to the glorious Bingil Bay beach. You can also organise trips out to the Great Barrier Reef to experience the incredible sea life and unique eco-system either snorkelling or diving. Many visitors are lured by the opportunity to go skydiving, or white water rafting at nearby Tully. For me it was the latter as I’d decided it was time to throw myself out of a perfectly good aeroplane. On the day Debbie who was celebrating her 21st birthday and had come to the conclusion that a parachute jump was a good way to mark the occasion accompanied me. We signed up with Jump The Beach by Raging Thunder Adventures, who picked us up by jeep and drove us to a tiny airfield where we were issued with a fetching orange and purple jumpsuit respectively and given a (brief) briefing on the jump itself. As this was a tandem jump there was little for us to remember other than tucking our legs in on descent and to signal with the universal language of thumb that all was OK.
Instruction over we squeezed ourselves aboard a Cessna and began to climb to the 12,000 feet jump altitude. As we lumbered slowly upwards the temperature dropped considerably but the views were magnificent. Dunk island and its neighbours lined up below us and the golden stretch of beach became a small yellow crescent.
Suddenly we became aware of some agitation amongst the professional skydivers and strained to hear a conversation between the pilot and the lead parachutist. Our assigned partners then leaned in and gestured for us to look in the opposite direction towards what was very obviously a significant storm approaching rapidly. When I say approaching we could actually see black clouds with lighting moving steadily closer. It was clear these weren’t suitable jump conditions and we had no option but to return to the airfield in the plane. For us this was disappointing but far more natural a way to descend. However the pros weren’t happy at all and amusingly seemed genuinely nervous about landing. But land we did without any drama and were back at the Treehouse before the heavens opened.
The next day we were picked up early to repeat the process. This time the weather was perfect. The plane had no door, just a large hole for us to exit from, so by the time we’d reached 12,000 feet I was so cold I was anxious to get out and down to the balmy 30 degrees we’d left below.
Exiting involved stepping out onto a tiny strip of metal on the wheel. It was only when we tumbled forward into the brilliant blue sky and I looked upwards to see only sky as we were upside down, did I feel a twinge of fear. We cannoned earthwards in free-fall for a few seconds during which I completely forgot all my training. My legs were flailing around and my instructor had to repeatedly give me the tuck legs signal before I complied. Then we suddenly shot upwards as the shute opened, levelled off and began to float leisurely through the now warm air down onto the sandy beach below.
