Skydiving

Skydiving at Mission Beach has a particular advantage: the beach landing zone. Most skydiving drop zones are flat paddocks somewhere inland; here you land on the beach with the Coral Sea in front of you and the rainforest at your back. Several operators run tandem jumps from the local airstrip, and the view during the descent — reef, islands, and the long green line of the Wet Tropics coast — is routinely described by visitors as one of the best they have seen from altitude.

Jumps run daily in fine weather. The tandem format requires no experience and minimal instruction. The main variable is cloud — if the ceiling is low, the views disappear. Book in the morning for the same day so you can judge conditions.

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A story
The jump from 14,000 feet above Mission Beach gives about 60 seconds of free fall, during which — weather permitting — you can see the full sweep of the Coral Sea, the reef offshore, and the green ridge of the rainforest running down to the beach. The landing zone is a strip of beach between the sea and the forest that requires the pilot to make a precise approach with no margin for error, which makes for a more memorable arrival than the usual grass paddock.