Party time: Schapelle Corby’s 40th birthday weekend

SCHAPELLE Corby has a lot of missed birthdays and milestones to make up for as she heads into her 40th birthday weekend.

THE last time Schapelle Corby attempted to celebrate a milestone birthday she was arrested for drug smuggling in an Indonesian Airport and sentenced to more than a decade behind bars.

Schapelle rose to infamy in Australia after she was caught at Indonesia’s Denpasar airport in 2004 with more than four kilograms of cannabis stuffed into her bodyboard bag.

Schapelle had boarded a flight to Bali from Brisbane with two friends and her half-brother James, for her sister Mercedes’ 30th birthday.

Instead, she spent the next nine years in Bali’s Kerobokan Prison and three years on parole, until she finally returned home to the Gold Coast in May this year.

She never got to pop Champagne bottles or cheers her sister to celebrate Mercedes’ 30th birthday nor did she throw a party for her own just a few years later.

Despite maintaining her innocence, she was sentenced to 20 years in Bali’s Kerobokan Prison.

But this weekend Schapelle will mark another milestone: her 40th birthday. And for the first time since she was 27 years old, she will be free to celebrate.

It’s not yet publicly known what her plans are, if any, but with years of missed birthdays and other special occasions, it’s unlikely to slip under the radar.

In May 2017, Corby signed her parole papers for the last time in Bali before arriving back on Australian soil for the first time in about 12 years.

Schapelle Corby with her brother and sister before she was deported from Indonesia to Australia in May this year.

Schapelle Corby posted this photo of herself to Instagram after recently returning to Australia. Picture: Instagram

Corby’s follower numbers on the social media platform have skyrocketed to 192,000 since she launched her account on the day of her homecoming.

She has used her account to communicate with the public in place of doing media interviews.

She recently tweeted a photograph from her hospital bed with the caption; “Hi guys. This is why you haven’t seen me in a while..... #sickbay #brokenleg #brokenankle #brokenknee.” The circumstances surrounding her injury remain a mystery.

Instagram photo of Schapelle Corby in hospital. Picture: Schapelle Corby/Instagram

June 7 2017 Instagram post by Schapelle Corby. She wrote: ‘Australia is so beautiful. Crisp, clean air. #australia #discoverqueensland #freedom.’ Picture: Instagram

Earlier this week, she maintained her innocence in a cryptic caption on Instagram with a photo of herself inside Kerobokan Prison.

The black and white image showed her receiving a manicure from a fellow cell mate. She said the photo was taken on a mobile phone borrowed from a prison guard in 2014.

“A fellow cellmate, my friend in block W, gifting me a manicure a few days before my release from Kerobokan prison,” Schapelle wrote.

She finished with the hashtags: “#kerobokanprison #10yearsbehindbars #innocent”.

Life for Corby began in Queensland where she was born the youngest to sister Mercedes and brother Michael Jnr. She also has three younger half-siblings.

In her 2006 memoir, My Story, Corby wrote that she first dabbled with drugs after chipping in $5 among her friends to buy marijuana at the age of 14.

“It made me feel so paranoid, that I wouldn’t speak to my friends,” Corby wrote.

She was briefly married to Japanese tourist Kimi Tanaka after they met in a Gold Coast supermarket in 1995.

But their relationship soured after the pair moved to Japan, and Corby was back in Australia by the year 2000.

In 2003 she enrolled in a beautician course but dropped out to care for her father who was diagnosed with cancer.

He died in 2008, while Corby was in prison.

Schapelle Corby checks the evidence in front of the Judge during the trial at Denpasar District Court in Bali, Monday, February. 3.

Schapelle Corby at the holding cells at the Denpasar District Court after her sentencing submissions by her defence team in Bali in 2005. Picture: AAP /Mick Tsikas.

On October 8, 2004, Schapelle arrived in Bali for her sister’s 30th birthday.

While walking through Bali’s Ngurah Rai International Airport that day, Schapelle was caught with the marijuana in her bodyboard bag.

Despite maintaining her innocence, she was sentenced to 20 years in Bali’s Kerobokan Prison.

In 2012 then-Indonesian president Susilo Bambang Yudhoyono granted Corby a five-year reduction in her sentence, which was further reduced at Christmas and on the nation’s independence day.

Originally published as Party time: Schapelle Corby’s 40th birthday weekend