Gordon Turner admits that making the transition from cricket to skydiving required a little adjustment.
"I got too old to play cricket," the 78-year-old laughed.
"It was quite a culture shock but I enjoyed it right from the word go," he said.
Turner is in the rural town of Batchelor, south of Darwin, for the biennial skydiving festival known as Rel Week Boogie.
"Mainly it's just a fun week where people come to meet other people... improve their skills a bit, but it's in no way a competition," he said.
The festival was first held in Katherine in 1977 before it moved to Batchelor in 1994 and is hosted by the Darwin Parachute Club.
The week-long event at the sleepy Batchelor Airfield sees about 150 amateur and professional skydivers from across Australia and overseas test their skills across multiple disciplines like wingsuiting and free flying.
Turner, who has been jumping out of planes for about 34 years, says it helps to be in good physical shape.
"You can be cramped in an aeroplane, you need to be flexible enough to fly round the sky and take a hard landing every so often," he said.
Participants agreed the sport attracts an odd mix of people.
"You get all kinds of people from doctors to policeman... but we aren't like them crazy adrenalin seeking things," said free flying skydiving coach Matt Boag.
"Yeah, we yahoo and scream and that but it's not like the stereotypical thing that you see on the movies but they are a little bit bent," he said.
