In his 90 years George Coghlan from Bomaderry has only been in an aircraft twice. The second time, this past weekend thousands of feet above Wollongong, he jumped out.
Subscribe now for unlimited access.
$0/
(min cost $0)
or signup to continue reading
"Oh mate, it was absolutely amazing," he says a couple of days after the tandem skydive.
His enthusiasm crackles over the phone line as he describes the jump.
"It was the coldest I've ever been in my life. It was freezing on the freefall. I wasn't worried about falling, All I said to myself was, 'For god's sake, turn the heating on.'"
"But then when he pulled the cord and the chute opened that was like hitting a brick wall. He told me that would be the tough part of it and it was. It went bang."
Read more:
What followed was the slow descent.
"I'd do it again just for the sights. The sights were fantastic."
So what possesses a bloke who gets nervous up on the roof, who's had two knee replacements and has trouble walking, to jump out of a plane at 90 years of age?
George lost his wife a couple of years ago, threw himself into gardening to keep himslef occupied but that wasn't enough.
"I saw a photo of an old lady, she was in her 80s, she did it. And they had the photo in the paper and I never seen a woman look so happy. She was having a ball and I thought, 'Well bugger it, I can't walk too far and do too much now but why not give it a go?'"
His doctor didn't believe George when he told him of plans to take a skydive. "He said to me, 'You're already a wreck.'" He son Peter, in his early 50s, thought his dad was crazy. But he also knew there was no stopping him.
George had always been an adventurer. Born in the depths of the Great Depression, he lost his mother in a ferry disaster on Sydney Harbour when he was a child. A few years later, his dad was murdered in what he believes was a gangland hit over a sly grog operation.
Taken in by a family friend, he spent years in the horseracing industry as an apprentice jockey and strapper. At 30, he quit, deciding to walk and hitchhike around Australia.
"I rolled the swag up and away I went. And I did that for a few years. It was good."
He met his wife, a governess on a remote cattle station, and it was love at first sight. But her mystery illness, which turned out to be multiple sclerosis, forced a return to city life until the couple moved to Bomaderry to escape the rat race.
His next adventure? "I really want to do a bungee jump but my doctor says it's too rough on the body."
But he'll find something to quench the thirst for adventure.
"You don't get anywhere standing still," he says.
Have your say. Send a letter to the editor