This and That and The Other and The SNAKE

This last week has been mainly characterized by rainy days, good meals, great conversation and a yearning to fly far. The last two days have had decent local flying conditions. Yesterday I flew Nina's glider, the XS Niviuk Hook. It was great fun to get off my demanding competition glider and fly around on a mellow user friendly wing. I spent an hour or so in the air getting high over launch and doing tricks to burn altitude. Today I flew for a few hours spending most of the time experimenting with lift lines that were forming in front of launch.

This morning I drove the superflash Rivergumsmobile to Tamworth (45k away) to drop my great friend Nina off at the train station. Nina and I have traveled around together for most of my trip here in Australia and it was a sad goodbye but an amazing time spent together.

This morning while packing her tent we lifted it up from the ground and found that a lovely one meter brown snake had been living underneath it. Brown snakes don't look so mean but they can be quite aggressive. Their venom is deadly if untreated and they are responsible for most of the deaths by snakebite in Australia. We did not know what type of snake it was at the time, though we assumed it was poisonous. Considering it was in the middle of the caravan park I felt a bit of an obligation to attempt and remove it from the area; its proximity to my tent (2 meters) encouraged this behavior. After trying to try and pick it up with a branch it slithered into Nina's tarp so I drug the tarp 100 meters to some bushes on the edge of the park and shook it off. This whole event has given me not the best feeling in my stomach, especially after finding out it was a deadly brown snake.

On another note, my trip is nearing its end. I leave Australia on April 22nd and head back to the U.S. I plan to stay around SLC/Moab for a few weeks before moving down to the great state of Colorado where I will spend my summer flying tandems for tourists in Glenwood Springs and hopefully saving up a bunch of dough. I plan to work hard this summer; I have been fully stung by the dreaded travel bug and am surely going to try and take another trip come next November. I am thinking it will be to the great Himalayan Mountains of India, Nepal and Pakistan; and I am thinking it will last about 5-6 months.

Back to Manilla

Manilla has been my home for the last hand full of days. It is nice to be back in the place where I started my trip, and nice to be back in the air for some distance flying. The first day here I only managed to fly 35k mainly flying into strong headwind while attempting a 65k out and return flight. The second day I managed to fly 85k towards Bingara. This was a great flight with a nice tailwind and puffy clouds. The day after this, two days ago, I flew a 55k triangle out on the flatlands, over town and landing back at the car. It has been great fun getting a chance to do some free flying and xcflying all by myself over the beautiful country surrounding Manilla.

There is a great river bordering the caravan park here. Yesterday, while attempting backflips off the monster rope swing I managed to swallow two mouthfuls of the dark brown Nemaoi river water, YUCK. The water is great for swimming but terrible for drinking, it sat in my gut for only a few hour until...

The first three pictures below are of my last triangle flight. In the third picture you can see a really tall dust devil in the field directly below me as I was climbing out in a nice thermal. The dusty was probably 1,000ft tall, its shadow is obvious on the ground as well. The fourth pic is of me making new friends; the girls and puppy were really nice until the girls turned on me and decided that kicking and punching me was more fun than being friends. This behavior of theirs continued today as well, I guess I just bring it out of them.

From Bright to the Blue Mountains and Beyond

Been bouncing around a lot over the last week or so. I left Bright last Monday after a few days of great flying. The last day in Bright graced Brian Webb and I with a 55k triangle that took us into the marvelous Kiewa valley. Brian competed the triangle with superb style, while I got stuck half way through but still managed to limp my way back to Bright. The day before this there was the final task of the Mount Beauty Classic, a fun friendly competition similar to the US's XC League. Luck was on my side this day as I was able to race through the 40k course super fast and arrive first in goal. Leaving Bright Nina and I had the chance to ride on a train for 8hrs so we took it; After arriving in Sydney we simply couldn't end our day so quick (leaving at 5am that morning) so we rode another train for 2 hours into the Blue mountains. The Blue Mountains graced us with terrible weather and great company. We stayed for 3 days at our friends Andy and Susi McMurry's home, and I mean we stayed at their home, we hardly left the house as it rained the entire time and was so foggy we couldn't see across street. After this we moved roots to Sydney to our friend Magdy's house which is an awesome place in the woods. Yesterday we kited and flew the coast for around four hours; it was picturesque flying over steep oceanfront cliffs. It was an amazing day of flying and hanging out with great friends, I even managed to get in a few nontraditional tandem flights. Tonight we, Magdy, Gaynor, Nina and I, are going to a lovely restaurant for dinner, Max Brennan's; this place is a sit down/takeaway restaurant that only serves chocolate and chocolate covered food. Please don't feel to bad for me, its not as bad as it sounds.

The pictures below are of the Big Walk and of yesterday's coastal flying. I took the pictures from the Big Walk and Magdy took all the flying shots except for the last one which I took. Magdy takes really good pictures.