WIN News Cairns

Recorded: 15 January 2014
Aired: 15 January 2014

Former SAS soldier, MacKa MacKail is retracing his steps across Cairns from decades ago. The difference is, it’s atop a high-rise city building, this thrill seeker refuses to take the stairs.

Video Transcription

Matthew: With weather like this, jumping off the side of the Rydges Tower in the CBD seems less than inviting, but for former SAS soldier, Macka MacKail, it’s a passion.

Macka: We’ve got the permits and we’ve been operating for about twenty-one years, but we started at the Pacific Hotel. And my last gig in Cairns, which was 2000, was at the Rydges Plaza here.

Matthew: Now, in his late 50s, Macka has returned to the town where he pioneered the extreme sport of Rap Jumping, returning to the places he trekked decades ago.

Derek: Jumping all the different sites, and showing all the people what Rap Jumping, its origins, where it started from, and where it is going.

Matthew: Macka started by jumping off the cities first skyscrapers in Natural Wonders, including Barron Gorge, where he even has a cliff named after him.

Macka: This town, without a doubt any other town in Australia, would be the capital of facing your fears with your bungee, your rafting, your diving. It just goes on and on and on.

Matthew: Now, operating out of Melbourne, Macka takes up to seventy people a day off the side of buildings to face their fears. And with far north Queensland being the home of adventure, he wants to make it a permanent fixture in the region.

Macka: I love Queensland, it’s my hometown. I’m an old Yorkies Knob boy, as they say, which is a good change here. We’ll wait for that casino to go up and see if we can get a permit out there.

Matthew: Taking the sport over the edge, Mathew Howard, WIN News.