Skydiving adventure in Cairns

The luminosity of pasty London skin only holds its allure for so long and so my wife and I took one bus, two tubes and a taxi (weekend engineering works) to the great western nesting site of the giant silver seafaring birds.

After twenty hours of time travel we were spat out onto the great southern continent - where the sun always shines and the beer is always cold.

When the doors opened onto the Cairns midday a veritable wall of heat stopped our excited chattering mid-sentence.

The first deep inhalation of humid air, like that of a drowning man, fills the lungs and sears the throat. This is summer but not as we know it, captain.

With our comfortable travelling clothes now clinging to us sweatily, we drove up the wide highway with our eyes on the view out the windows. And what a view!

The city of Cairns huddles on a broad flat plain surrounded inland by a ring of impressive mountains that seem like two giant cupped hands trying to push it gently into the great Coral Sea.

The mountains here have seen one of the best wet seasons in years and thick, lush rainforest covers every inch of land.

The opulent green leaves of the canopy project a warmth of their own, adding to the heat trapped on the plain and giving Cairns its sticky reputation.

I managed to drag my better three-quarters kicking and screaming onto a small, small, tiny skydiving plane with nothing but an excitable madman strapped to her back and promptly threw her out of the door.

Our jump site was near the Great Barrier Reef, backed by the Atherton Tablelands and over a huge plantation of bananas and sugar cane. Green gold as far as the eye could see.

From the constant scream coming from my (soon to be chasing me with a stick) other half I took it that she loved the sheer exhilaration of hurtling at terminal velocity in a minute long freefall towards the ground.

I could hear the pure relief in her scream when the parachute opened and the harness tightened in all the wrong places.

My instructor showed his tenuous grip on reality when he let me fly the open parachute down and laughed loudly as I tugged hard on the left handle and sent us spiralling in tight circles straight towards the ground before he wrenched the handle back just as I tried an impromptu landing side on.

My wife landed moments before me but was still flat out on the ground, breathing hard, for a long time after I had landed - overwhelmed by the emotion of it all.

The drive back along the Bruce Highway was strangely quiet as the draining effect of too much adrenaline took its toll on my normally talkative wife.

She did manage to tell me in no uncertain terms that is was great, amazing and fantastic but that was one adventure ticked off and there would never, ever be a repeat.

I could tell from the thousand-yard stare and the manic grin on her face that this would be a holiday she would never forget.

Cairns itself is small enough to accidentally walk out of when deep in conversation but lively enough for either the hardened traveller or the stop-over warrior.

As you would expect from an Australian tourist town there are plenty of activities on offer, with every third shop being a tour operator. Everything from PADI and SSI learn-to-dive packages, to throwing yourself out of perfectly good aeroplanes or outback bush adventures and cultural billy-tea parties are available.

The Esplanade is the main tourist road of this tourist-centric town. As a young but not-really-that-young couple we wanted somewhere quiet enough to have some time together without worrying about some over-imbibed traveller mistakenly clambering into bed with us.

So we waylaid a few locals and heeding their advice managed to find a small apartment ten minutes walk from the centre of town for not much more than a double room in a hostel.

If we were five (or ten) years younger we could have found many great social Backpackers with dorm rooms and shared bathrooms - many with their own bar and theme nights - but they were not for us.

We stayed at the Concord Apartments on Sheridan St for A$75 (£35) a night for a self-contained apartment (two double and one single bedroom).

We jumped with Jump the Beach.

We drank at Shenanigans Irish bar, Spencer street where there is a wide range of international beers and wines. Sports are shown in a large outdoor area.

We shopped for food and other supplies at Rusty's Market on Abbot street. You can't get enough of the fresh fruit and cane sugar drinks.

We ate at Red Ochre Grill, Shields St, with its modern Australian cuisine and fresh seafood. If you have ever wanted to eat kangaroo, crocodile or emu meat you can try it all and more here.

Patrick Hannan