Due East (Part 2)

Technically, it should be due south since I last wrote (from Hong Kong) but it would ruin the theme. I’m now in Australia, Cairns to be precise, having travelled up from Sydney, for those of you who are trying to keep a track of my whereabouts.

We’ve just got some sunny weather which actually means I felt good when I awoke in my tent this morning. This may also have been helped by only drinking 2 glasses of wine last night. I now own a bottle of Jameson’s on the trailer (which was my demise during a poker session as I downed a few shots waiting for the last player to make up his mind. A few hands later I went all in on a pair of 10s which didn’t do so well against his straight. Poo. The Jameson’s was actually a thought to move away from beer as I thought I might get fat…

which probably would have helped a bit when we went rafting a few days ago. Now, I’m not a strong swimmer (see previous blog) so I get a little bit apprehensive in a swimming pool let alone being dragged along a white-water river. All was good in the end, although I gave my instructor a bit of a worry after I failed to resurface after going down a ‘water-slide’ which plummets you to 5m depth before you surface which most people did in 6 seconds. I took 8, which only adds evidence to the fact that I just don’t float like all you fat people.

Today I jumped out of a plane. Now, before you recite the classic line “you must be crazy to jump out of a perfectly good plane” you should note that there actually is very little space in it and it was quite a relief to jump in the end. I say jump, but it was more like I got thrown out before I knew any better. It all happens so quickly as you first feel happy that you haven’t hit the tail, then worry about how the parachute will open if you carry on tumbling and then somehow the instructor rights you and you hurtle to the ground at around 200mph for nearly a minute before he decides it’s about time to open the ‘chute and it turns out that you’re still attached to it. Then he asked me how I felt and I said “awesome, although my mouth is dry” and he went on to tell me about the side effects of adrenaline. It’s like med school all over again.

So yeah, that about sums up all the adrenaline-fuelled activities I’ll be undertaking for a while so mum and dad may be happy that I’m still alive. Bumped into Andrew (Monty) as I was walking back from the post office in a extreme spors shop. Apparently, he was buying a one-way ticket on a plane with a parachute. Good luck to him. As I said to some of the other guys on a plane. This will probably be one of the few times in your life where you’ll be happy that there’s a grown man strapped so tightly to your back.