As hinted below, I approached last weekend with a slightly different tack – More on that later.

In the end we ended up with two great days of flying. Spring was we and truly blown out by 9am Saturday morning. The wind talker was calling in excess of 40mph. So on a whim Karl, Ed, Simon S and I head down to Lanyon. That place is amazing – the wind was perfect.

We all launch and have a ball in the buoyant if a little rough air. Lift lines extended out over the suburbs allowing us to push a couple of km headwind with no loss of height – a great feeling.

One of these excursions I was rewarded with a nice smooth climb from the mountain in front. It turned into a 4m/s as I followed it back to launch. It was the smoothest bit of air all day so I pulled out the camera and got some happy snaps on the way up. Eventually I had to leave it at 4500ft due to airspace around launch. I still had the camera in my hand as I left the still booming thermal and was treated to an interesting ride as I flew through the upwind turbulence with only one hand on the base bar. Mental note made.

Karl managed to land at the oval in a rather exciting manner using every inch of available space. The rest of us landed in the bombout. Spectacular wave clouds covered the city as we retrieved the car from the top of the hill.

With the climbs we had and a similar forecast for Sunday I was keen to head XC. That night I had the maps out to see what the plan of attack would be in order to avoid airspace. It was pretty simple – stay under 4500 until we were a few km south of Williamsdale. There airspace lifted to 6500 which was higher than I expected to be getting that day anyway.

We set goal for Bredbo with waypoints at Williamsdale and Michelago. Karl, Dave, Chop, Ryan, Dan and I line up to fly.

Karl gets off and takes a couple of climbs in front of launch but the rest of us are unable to get off the deck because the wind was now trending almost due south on launch. The wind blows up the slope for a moment and I take the opportunity to get off but there’s no such luck for the others so it ends up being just Karl and I in the air.

Ridge lift was almost nonexistent so we bounce around in the light thermals for about half an hour before I snag a good climb. Karl missed this one but was still climbing so I try heading a little south to test the waters. I hit massive sink and come back to the hill 600ft below launch. Luckily there was a clearing with few turbulence creating trees on the up wind side that allowed me to hug the terrain and eventually climb back up. I then climb back out to 4300ft and head off along course. The southerly wind now meant that we would be pushing cross headwind in order to follow the task.

I follow the ridge down over some areas without roads really not wanting to get low. There are regular climbs along the way so things never look too bad. For the largest crossing I had a family of happy eagles to help me out which was nice to know before diving in.

The ridge I was following eventually peters out and but I needed more height to make the next ridge back to the east. This is where I make my bad decision for the day. I try to push on down the ridge rather than flying back and looking for more height. This leaves me with nowhere to go but back into the valley low – a position I was never going to recover from.

I scratched the best I could in the rotory broken lift but I eventually land at Williamsdale after travelling for about a km at 300ft over the Monaro Hwy. Good publicity.

Chop and Dave swing by and pick me up just as a sailplane passes over head. Thanks guys!

A few more photos from the weekend can be found here.

So how do we go about this flight in the future? My thoughts are: -

- Stay high 4500 is the max and you will need every bit to make the next ridge back on the eastern side of the highway.

- Be patient. Don’t try the crossing until you are in the perfect position to go for it.

- Once you have made the jump it looks like a pretty easy run down to Breadbo.

Let’s Give it a bash!