Yesterday, Deb, Dave and I headed up to Tongara with high hopes of heading XC south along the ridge. 25 degrees was the forecast and they were right on the mark. Launching conditions were perfect with a NW wind up high but as usual the was a nice breeze being funnelled up the valley and straight up launch.
I went first but end up bombing out after scratching below ridge height for the 20 mins or so. Dave launched next and scratched like a champion and managed to get up above the ridge. He bounced between the ridge height and 500ft (one climb up to 100 above) above for the next 2.5 hours. A great effort on what what proved to be a very tough day. Dave is flying really well at the moment. The time he has been putting in over winter is really paying dividends as we approach the flying season proper.

As testomony to the difficulty of the day, Deb picked me up from the bombout and I had another go. A similar result awaited me and I was once again watching Dave from the bottom of Macquarie pass. Thanks must go to Deb for driving up and down the pass all day to pick me up.

Dave makes his first top landing at Tongara just behind launch to top off a great flight.

We finished off a fun day with Blue Tongue Larger on tap at the Robertson pub.

My calendar must be broken. It thinks that it is still winter…

Over the weekend Dave and I headed up to Newcastle in the hope of maybe going round in circles with some of the locals. Ryan, Dan and Karl also drove up to to check out the night life.

Saturday, started out pretty average. 8/8 cloud cover and base below the hills. We head out to Freeo’s at 10am but things still weren’t looking good. After a whole lot of procrastination eventually it was 3pm and it was on at Scenic on the coast. Low ridge runs were the order of the day. Not booming but at least it put a smile on our faces for the BBQ at Mon and Scott’s that night. That night the food was great as was the mix of a nice bottle of red and Scott’s stories from the World’s the week before.

Sunday, we wake a little later than usual to the nice surprise of sunlight streaming through the curtains. Conversation revolves around heading out to Brokenback. There’s a whole lot more enthusiasm amongst the usual crowd today. Dave and I are stoked as we’ve had some great flights from the North facing cliff launch.

Mon and Tink graciously offer the drive for us (A big thank you girls!) so we head off to launch. Along the way things start to look ominous with cloud base getting lower as we head inland. Our fears were short lived though as once it started to burn off it dissipated very quickly.

Arriving on launch saw many of the familiar smiling faces we come so accustom to when travelling to a random hill in the Hunter. It’s great to catch up with everyone who missed out on the BBQ the night before. Our thoughts soon turn to flying when Cam lobs off and goes up.

Launching today could have been pretty tricky but everyone knows what they’re doing and we’re all off the hill in minutes despite having to wait for nil wind cycles as it was predominately blowing from over the back.

At first, lift was pretty good but I failed to commit to my first solid climb with Scott and Cam among others. I saw which direction they took off in but being 200ft below them I was not sure how much height I would have up my sleeve to make the next ridge south along the range.

Things got slow and scratchy after that. Several guys had a go at getting back but they were not having much luck landing at a few km away. Eventually Dave and I were left on the ridge together. For at least half an hour we scratched at ridge height in little more than zero sink. The day was still relatively young so we hang on for a good climb. It came in the form of a messy 2m/s climb to about the same height as Scott left. So that was enough for me.

I tracked back to a cloud along course back to Newcastle (the optimistic goal) but was greeted with the climb of the day along the way. Huge, smooth and 3m/s to cloud base. With the recent rain in the area I was keen to stick to the relatively dry mountains. This worked for a while with a couple of low saves along track down the range. I ended up landing a couple of km short of where Cam and Donny ended up – Bellbird (not that I knew it’s name while I was enroute). Scott made it back to Cessnock and landed at one of the ovals in town. Dave managed to get high as I was heading off and had a dig at heading down the ridge.

A fun day sharing the air with a whole lot of great pilots and even better retrieve crew. Thanks again, Tink for driving to random paddocks and picking us up, Scott for putting me up for the weekend, and especially Monica, for all the above.

Mon also managed to take some great pics of Scott, Dave and I.

Yesterday Dave, Simon and I had a nice little fly at Lake G after first casually calling in to Stanwell on the way. What started on BOM on Saturday as being isolated showers around Wollongong had develoved into showers by Sunday morning and full blown rain by the time we got there. After calling into Dan and Bianca’s we head back inland with our tails between our legs.

With rain pretty much everywhere, our perseverance eventually paid off when we reached Lake George. There was a nice breeze from the SE. Simon flew a little too far out from the lift band on launch but had a fun walk out from the bombout. Dave and I made our way up to the winery and ridge raced back. I was not much competition as my light wing loading is far from ideal when you are trying for speed.

There were two heart racing moments during the flight. The first was not a lot to do with me but I may have caused it. First I heard a massive screeching of tyres. I looked down in horror to see a car spinning out of control along the highway around the first rest stop directly underneath me. After two revolutions he was moving pretty slow but hit the fence with the back of the car as they attempted to stay on the road. Luckily there were no other cars for about 300m either side of him. The car then turned back the right way and sped off.

The next incident was a little closer to home. Following Dave’s textbook top landing I lined up and came in with my usual approach setting up a little higher and further back than the usual approach. As I descended through the rotor I was ready for it and punched through with speed but I was too far back from my desired landing area. I then went back into prone to penetrate a little further forward. That worked but I was quite low and still had my hands on the basebar. I reached for the upright but got caught on the rear wire a couple of times which saw me stall still 8-10ft off the ground. Not Cool!

I never did get a grip on the upright instead all I could was through my forearm forward from behind the upright a I arrived with quite a whack. I deserved to break the base bar or at least an upright but nothing was bent. Very lucky – Not at all good planning. In hindsight I was silly to leave the transition to hang so late. A lesson I will not forget in a hurry.

It was a great flight even despite this stuff up and the best bit is that it looks like the lake will be on a couple more days this week. See you there.