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LIFE IS BEAUTIFUL I lobbed off the west launch at Mt Borah (Manilla NSW) into a strongish wind that was well off to the south. After some scratching about on the hill I ended up over the bombout at about 50 metres when I cranked it into a tight little express train. I was climbing at six metres per second (1200fpm) with the wing banked right up and two wraps on my right brake. The thermal was so tight that twice I lost {collapsed} the left side thirty percent of my wing. I wasn't going to let it throw me out though, so I just leant harder into the turn and applied more right brake. I was too busy staying in the core, so I just let the collapses work themselves out. Back up to launch height the thermal hit the inversion and either died or I got peeled off and couldn't follow it through the inversion. Some months previously I had seen Niki Hamilton slide off downwind along the western side of the ridge in similar conditions, So I thought I'd give it a go. A couple of days previously I'd decked it at the end of the western side of the ridge at Borah Downs and I didn't relish the idea of the long walk out, but I felt it was my only chance of getting away. As I headed off downwind I saw the others that had followed me into the thermal wimp out and turn back into wind. With the strongish wind they all flew under any later thermals from the same trigger, and they all bombed. Steadily losing height I moved out over the paddocks as I thought the wind was too southerly to push the thermals back onto the ridge. At about 200 metres I started scratching in little bubbles that were mostly zeroes. At least I was mostly maintaining height. Drifting with the wind, I was turning in anything that wasn't going down. Searching downwind or a little upwind whenever the lift dropped off. I scratched and drifted all the way down the west side at between 100 and 200 metres off the deck. At the end of the ridge I had just enough height to safely drift over the trees and to follow the bubbles through the gap and towards Tarpoly. At Tarpoly I drifted over a big grassy field with a tree line at the downwind end. Woof! up it went, the whole hot airmass that I had been drifting in went up. I was 15km from launch and I had finally got above hill height. I had drifted for about 10km at between 100 & 200 metres. At cloudbase, I headed out after Godfrey who was a few kilometres out in front, and who kept calling me on, saying that the Cu he was under was great. I'd jump on the speed bar and head off, but my timing was all wrong and I kept arriving just as the Cu's were dying. Maybe if I had've been flying a high performance wing I could have kept up, but my sure and steady intermediate (DHV2) wing (Airwave Fusion) was not up to it. I would have to scratch again to get back to cloud base. Luckily the inversion had broken by this time and it wasn't too hard. I just had to let Godfrey go or I would fly myself into the ground. As I flew past Blue Knobby and into the Horton Valley I was joined by three wedge tail eagles. The biggest of which proceeded to dive bomb me. I was in a thermal and I wasn't going to lose it. I kept thermalling by the sound of the vario while looking up and back. As it would come in low above my canopy with it's wings tucked in (wedgie big ears) I would give a big fast chicken flap with the brakes. The noise and movement would make it change course. It was hard trying to watch all three and thermal as well but we had fun playing chicken, me and the three wedgies. Out in the middle of the Horton valley now, Godfrey called me on the radio to say he had been on the deck for some time. He had tried to make it through the next pass at Rocky Creek and had lost too much height trying to punch into the headwind that was there. A while later I was scratching at about 400-500m above ground when Godfrey radioed to say that he wouldn't want to be landing right now as the wind in the valley had picked up to thirty knots. What! 30knots! Gulp! I'd better scratch real hard until I drift to the north out of the strong valley wind. Luckily I slowly scratched back up as I drifted out of the valley to the north. By the time I was well out of the valley I reached my highest cloudbase of the day at 3000m (10,000ft). I had quite a tail wind now and the next 30km went past pretty quick. When I reached the Gwydir Highway I was low and there was a big cloud bank completely shadowing the way forward. So I decided to spiral down to the little town below. I landed descending vertically into the strong wind. I had landed just across the road from a woman watering her front yard. I said "where am I?" (I rarely bother with a map). She said "Graves End". I dug my map out of my pack and measured it off. 120+km, my personal best in four and a half hours. I packed up my wing, made a phone call to Godfrey's, and started hitching back. I was picked up by two guys making their fortnightly two hour drive to the Mc Donalds at Moree to pick up a box of big Macs for them and their friends to microwave when they got back. I thought, if these guys are so dedicated to Maccas I had better try a Big Mac or two to see what the fuss is about (I'm mostly vegetarian). The people that pick up hitch hikers are definately more interesting or entertaining than those that just drive past. They gave me a beer and dropped me at Warialda. My next lift was a short one to Warialda rail, where I stood on the side of the road 'til it got dark. I made a short walk to the pub, where I had a couple of beers and some food, while entertaining the locals with tales from cloud base and chatting up the women. Then I walked back up the road to have another unsucessful attempt to hitch at night. The wing was then thrown over the fence into a field, where I rolled up one side of it to act as a mattress. The other side was folded over a few times to make the doona. At first the low porisity fabric made it a little sweaty, but then I put my cotton lined flying suit on. The result was a good nights sleep under the stars with my head in the clouds. Next morning, I quickly got a couple of lifts the rest of the way back. Where I had time to have a hearty breakfast before going back up the hill to do another 60km. Life truely is beautiful, and getting back can be almost as much fun as the flying. |