Day 8. It was an early departure from Cairns (pronounced Caaaans) to the Gold Coast. Like the trip to Uluru, we are on the Skyjet, so we have to work our way into checkin with luggage. The flight was fine, again Disney bought beverages for everyone, and they manhandled the luggage from the airport. The Disney group took a coach from the airport to the Gold Coast main beach, over an hour's drive north. Here we deviated from the script. This was an OYO day. We cleared some serious bucket lists on this day. When we landed at Gold Coast, we departed the ADB group for skydiving!
DH has always wanted to do this, and landing on the Gold Coast beach was the icing on the cake. The DD twins were gung-ho, and DW wanted them to have an adventure of a lifetime. Clearly DW will do anything for my kids. DD1 says, "Easily the best thing I have ever done, and will do it again and again."
We stayed behind at the airport, and two others in the
ABD group signed on with us. The DD told two other ABD guys about this plan, and they decided that it would be a good idea too-- so they came along. We had reserved the trip and time; they did not. So when they called, they were set to go a little before the time we had reserved -- which surprised even them. They returned with no problems, so we got ready.
These people prepare you with everything and they do a lot of this. We are strapped in and helmeted and flotation devices and assigned to one of the tandem divers.
We were outfitted and put through a safety drill and met our tandem masters. We trudged out to their van and five jumpers and five tandem masters popped back to the airport and climbed aboard their prop. DW was reluctant so she was the last on the plane. She wasn't paying attention as this meant she was out first. There were five of us on the plane strapped to five jumpmasters. No door on the plane - wide open as it takes off from the same airport where we landed with ABD.
They skydiving folks were funny, relaxed and made this easy. With the side door of the plane open with us sitting on a bench (with a “seat belt hook” to hold us in, we took off to 12,000 feet. My DW was the first to go out, within the instant the warning the light turned green and her tandem master pushed out the plane.
We got to 12,000 heights and the light went on and the last thing DW heard is "we're up-- throw your legs over..." And she realized he meant dangle her legs out of a moving airplane at 12,000 feet. She didn't jump, her tandem master did. The next thing she knew she was dropping like a stone. Her words "Free fall. I did not know that once you open your mouth, it stays open until your parachute deploys. It is loud--- and unbelievable. Wow - oh wow! Then the chute is pulled, you pop up--and it's very quiet. The view was clear and clean. My tandem guy said, "Welcome to my office." And I just slowly dropped down. It was very pastoral. It may be that I was so terrified dropping like that, so that the idea that I wasn't plummeting to my imminent death made me more calm. And it was a lovely view."
For my jump, once the chute deployed I was invited to steer and guide the chute over the water and to try to make it back to shore…my tandem master wanted to have some fun, so he put me into a death spiral spin…it was a bit queasy for a minute, but then back to normal. My DDs and DW had tandem masters that were a bit more reasonable. See the picture of the chute sideways and that was me in the "spin."
We landed without any incident on a very soft warm sandy beach. No one died. Life was good. The landings were handled by the tandem master, we just lift our legs and they do all the work. We land, congratulate ourselves, and the tandem master unhooks and does all the work while we dust ourselves off and head back to the van to pop over to the office to return our gear. In less than two hours we started, jumped, landed and completed a 12000 foot tandem jump onto the Australia Gold Coast. We all agreed it was fantastic and we are glad we did it. My DW says now that she has done it, she never has to do it again. My DDs want to go again. I recommend the experience. They then took us on the long drive to the hotel, where ABD already had the luggage in the rooms and the Guides were waiting to give us the room keys.
We ate dinner at the hotel buffet, which I do not recommend to those who visit. It was $80 pp and not very good. Most other folks enjoyed a relaxing restful day on the beach, at the pool, shopping or chartering a boat to go out deep sea fishing. This is really a good idea to let people rest if they want to or do things that they want. I heard nothing but positives from the group over the "lack" of ABD activities for the day - it has been a very active and full trip, and especially the kids wanted a day off to play, and this is known as "surfer's paradise" for a reason. Another day rated as excellent.
But first, the Gold Coast - wow - great place to play, relax, and take a breath from a very busy adventure. The Sheraton Mirage hotel is huge, I mean really huge, and it is in the heart of the main beach section of Gold Coast. It is a five star resort with a connecting bridge over to the spit bay with a high end shopping mall, marina and restaurants. The fountains and pools go on and on...from clay tennis courts to oceanfront access, it is quite the spectacular place. However, they nickle and dime you...wifi was $20 per device per day, if you want beverages with the meals, other than water, juice or plain coffee, it's $8.00, etc. Virtually all the other hotels on this trip trump this one for "livability." However, it is truly an impressive place if money is no object. On the other hand, our amazing guides stepped in at check out and all these "charges" disappeared from the bill. Apparently others in our group had already complained … magic at its best.