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Travelex 2000 prize winning 50 word 'Golden Moment':

My screams of delight are lost in the wind’s roar as I fall through violet rainbow rings at 100 miles an hour, the velvet greenery of Australia’s North Queensland racing upwards to engulf me. Then the parachute flutters like angel wings and fear has gone from my heart forever.


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Over the rainbow by Maureen Moss


Backpacking adventures are no longer the exclusive domain of the young. Increasing numbers of forty and fifty somethings are seeking more excitement than a package holiday can provide. I was approaching 50, professionally successful, with a beautiful home, comfortable lifestyle and 3 healthy teenage children. I quit my job, sold everything and travelled the world.
“Kneeling in the open door of the aircraft, wind and engine roar drowning out all other sensations, I can only tingle with a mixture of terror and anticipation. Below me, clouds swirl like disinfectant in water, and far down I glimpse a ring of prime colours which I take to be some kind of target. Viewed from 10,000 feet, a rainbow is a complete circle. I’m determined to keep my eyes open. Every second is to be relished.
“On the count of three, lean forward, dip your chin to your chest, and roll out, okay?”
We rock forwards, then back.
“One!”
Forwards again, and my heart has somersaulted. The instructors cheat, in case someone yells ‘no’ at the last second.
Plummeting now at 100 miles an hour, the noise of a thundering express train fills my head. My mouth is parched: it is gaping open. The cloud vapour dissipates. I am bathed in sunlight. The earth is hurtling upwards. Am I upside down? I can make out the peak of a mountain, directly beneath me!
I pass through layers of red, orange, and violet. I am falling through the rings of the rainbow. This is the most powerful experience ever. I have relinquished every vestige of control. Inside, I am quivering with intense pleasure.
A tap on my shoulder. Way above, I make out three black dots tumbling towards me – my children! I must be crying, but I can’t tell.
A jolt at my back, and I am floating in complete silence. Peace descends; the wings of an angel are flapping above me. I am convinced I will break my legs when we land, but I don’t care.
Spread-eagled on the grass, I scrutinise my children’s faces. Twitching from adrenaline, we scream for joy from the bottom of our lungs.
Each time I look up at the sky, I glow with the same excitement. I know how it feels to be up there, and nothing will ever be the same again”.
Skydiving over Cairns, Australia, for my 50th birthday. This was the highlight of our adventure. How did it start?
"All important decisions should be made under a new moon" my friend Rachael had mused. I stared up at the white scythe blade in the sky and made my life-changing one. After years of gazing at vapour trails, it was time to stop daydreaming and make it happen: the journey around the planet, destination unknown. Superficially happy, I had spent five years internally mourning a marriage of 21 years after the departure of my husband, vacillating between panic and a gnawing void. It was time to act.
Five months later, with my son, daughters, son-in-law and sister-in-law (there were many times when I was grateful for the company of a peer), I boarded a BA/Qantas flight to Mumbai. Our tickets were valid for a year, with further stops at Singapore, Bangkok, Hong Kong, Auckland, Sydney and L.A. We were eventually to add internal flights, and Ho Chi Minh city, Guangzhou, and Cancun to the destination list. So began a physical journey, accompanied by the inevitable but unexpected stow away: an inner odyssey. Ignorant of my innocence, at the time I thought I was merely curious about our planet. It was only en route that my perception of reality changed, to embrace a wealth of unimagined possibilities and to acknowledge the infinite wisdom of spiritual rather than materialistic societies. As a group, the journey forced each of us to balance our development as individuals against our relationships, both with one another and with our destinations. Sometimes, this stretched us to our limits of patience and tolerance. Once or twice we blew, but the practicality of being on the move forced speedy reconciliation. We had to overcome prejudices and fears, and eventually learned to welcome the challenge presented by them. Whilst sharing our destiny, we became a family irrespective of blood ties. We spent our first night celebrating with champagne in a guest house near Heathrow, when we committed ourselves to the experience, and indeed it was as if we were wedded to the journey, and to all its highs and lows.
For better, there was the sheer enchantment of standing among whispering trees at the base of Uluru, or at the foot of the solitary and lovely Namuang waterfall on Koh Samui, when ancient powers were restored within our souls. Or of stroking primordial turtles on Mieu island, Vietnam, gazing at bright red fiddler crab claws in the mangrove swamps near Cairns, and touching the red velvet inside of a giant clam on the Great Barrier Reef.
Passing through the golden gates of spectacular Jaisalmer Thar desert fortress, we caught sight of lacework masonry on merchants’ houses and wondered at man’s achievement. Gliding past the strange formations of the mystical, surreal landscape along the shores of the Li River, we watched cormorant fishermen shrouded in mist silently performing their daily rituals. Camped under a carpet of stars in the desert, we could hear only the occasional grunt from our camels silhouetted on the horizon by a huge moon. Lying in the Caribbean sea at Coco beach, near Playa del Carmen, Mexico, was utter bliss after a couple of Margaritas from the Blue Parrot.
We laughed as we entered ‘no poo’ loo in Jimmy’s café, Yangshuo, complete with explicit diagram on the wall, and when we spent the night in a fantasy treehouse at
Da Lat hill station, with a life size stuffed bear by the bedside. We giggled like schoolchildren on perusing a menu offering ‘crap soup’ and ‘fried jumping sea snails’ in Hoi An, and when we spied the ‘Nearly Honest’ shop in Mount Abu, and whilst changing money in the ‘camel bank’ in Jaisalmer - a tent, complete with cud-chewing cow. Among the most bizarre memories must be watching ‘Priscilla Queen of the Desert’ on a tiny black and white television in the mountains near Guilin, whilst waiting for a burst tyre to be repaired. Or catching sight of the ‘berths’ on the overnight ferry from Guangzhou to Wuzhou: 4’ x 3’ of wooden floor space, separated by upturned planks. And coming across an abandoned Ferris wheel in a clearing in the Daintree rainforest, Far North Queensland, after driving off road for 3 hours.
For worse? It has to be enduring a 20 hour bus ride over deep potholes in the road between Ahmedabad and Udaipur, squashed between dozens of people, loud Hindustani music screaming throughout the night. Or watching cockroaches run up and down the walls, lying on greasy sheets, in the only budget hotel available in Ahmedabad at one o’clock in the morning. Or waking with damp cheeks on a bus, to find that the lady directly in front had been spitting phlegm through the open window. Or being stoned in the literal, not chemical sense, by teenagers in Relief Road, after waiting 7 hours in scorching heat for a bus at a remote roadside, only to hear “bus is cancelled, come back tomorrow”. Despite newfound courage, I feared an icy grave whilst descending in convoy during a blizzard from Mount Hutt ski slopes near Christchurch, New Zealand. But none of these surpassed the supreme frustration of trying to make a long distance telephone call, hire a car, order a pizza (or in fact any hitherto straightforward transaction) in the USA.
For richer: returning, I started again with a new perspective on what I wanted out of life. Certainly not our society’s “want it, work to get it, want more, work more” loop. I no longer need to be recognised by what I do, earn, or own. Rather, I have a fervent desire to maintain my liberation and am committed to discovering as many cultures as I can. Now, whenever I want, I travel back through time and recreate any moment I choose. I continue to build a store of memories instead of acquisitions. And it never hurts.
For poorer: it all cost thousands of pounds, and took nearly all of my capital – but who cares? I bequeath my children not the pot of gold, but the rainbow itself.
How to change your life forever:
 don’t just decide to go, decide to make the going happen, come what may, within your chosen time scale. This makes the whole task relatively straightforward, without emotional or psychological leaps.
 be prepared to be renewed, to have your conceptions wiped away. Extended travel frees space in your head previously occupied by work schedules and routine, enabling you to think, and to see the world in a different way
 just sell up, buy the tickets, and get on the plane. Everything else will fall into place. You’ll find out what you need to know from guidebooks, your doctor, travel industry employees, friends and fellow travellers. It really couldn’t be simpler!


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