Friday, December 08, 2006

Big Wednesday( part 1)

After just competing in Gulgong classic I weas off to perth for a holiday. This will be the first trip I have had without my glider or harness for a long time. All was going well until I heard about the rumors of some possible record days coming up back home. I was then studying the weather map constantly over the weekend knowing that from my position it was going to be at least 2 days journey home, so I needed to predict the future. It was on monday morning that I woke up in Perth and checked the weather again and decided that either tuesday or wednesday would be the best days. I now had one slight problem my plane ticket was booked for tuesday to fly back to Sydney and that meant me missing the chance to break the record. I quickly asked if it would be alright to go home early for a random crack at the record. I got the all imortant yes and I was straight on the phone to see if I could get on a flight that was leaving in 2 hrs back to Sydney. I managed to make the flight by just a few minutes and was now soon boarding the Virgin Blue flight to Sydney. When I arrived in Sydney I tried to talk Dave seib into driving some 10 hrs up to the Canungra and try for a record on wednesday. I had finally convinced him and our bags were packed and ready to leave bright and early the next morning.We drove to the factory and dave had decided that he would not be able to make it as he had to much work to do. So I quickly loaded up before sunrise and I was off to Queensland. I called home early in the morning to see what the weather was like and big jon told me it was looking good and he was going for it. I drove for 10 hrs twitching and making the odd phone call to see how he was progressing in fear that I might have been a day late. I arrived home and still no word of big jon but just after 3pm my phone rang and it was big Jon, a big sigh of relief knowing that my record was still safe.He had wound down at Dalby (220kms) after not having a driver and going to slow to break the record he gave up on the day. So I went for another 5 hour drive to pick him up to make it a total of 1400kms of driving that I did for the day. Arriving back home I soon found my long lost bed and had about 6hrs sleep. I woke up to about a 10-15knts SE and was now ready the phone was ringing constantly and soon there were about 8 pilots all set up on the hill by 8am. Davo was first to launch folowed closely by me and Enda in the paraglider. It took us about 20 minutes to climb out and soon we were heading over the back at 8:30am. I went a slightly different way to Davo and Enda and was rewarded with a good climb back to 3800ft. I just tried to stay in front of the big shade line behind me as I went through what would be one of the most challening parts of the flight. I had to do a bit of zig zagging through the Baudesert area to reach the foothills on the other side where the next clouds were.This section claimed Davo and Enda as they got stuck low in the shade. I then had a pretty good run through the Boonah valley and was soon at Boonah T in 1hr (50kms)so things were not looking to bad. I tried to push quite hard but I had very little tailwind and the climbs were not great. Arriving at Toowomba base was still low and it was mostly blue with just the odd cloud accross the Great Dividing Range. I was thinking about landing at Withcott (135kms) cause the weather looked like shiot in front of me. I realised then that my time was wrong on my gps and that in fact it was only 11:20am so I was here 1 hour earlier than any other flight that I had made. So I kept going and once making a hard crossing I was soon low and scratching on the flatlands.