Weekend Warrioring

Checked the forecast on Thursday, out of habit really and noticed that it was looking about as good as it gets for Manilla. Having been away the previous week nobody was really keen to do the drive and there was talk of flying the Hunter Valley, 2.5 hrs closer than Manilla so I couldn't convince anyone. I drove myself as I was too late to get a ride with another car load and couldn't convince anyone else to come up and certainly couldn't convince myself to stay at home. Saturday had very weird cloud early on and nicer cloud after about 1pm, got to 2300m then glided into the dirt in less than 10Km. Oops.

Sunday looked as classic as any day I've ever flown in Manilla. 15-20k tail wind, perfect Cu from horizon to horizon. I climbed out to 2300m with JJ and Shep and we headed west. 15Km out I'd picked the paddock I was going to be landing in right behind Shep when I saw his glider pitch back and he screamed away. I flew in under him, about 50m off the deck before I got the climb...and we were away. Again. The sky was saying 5m/s climbs everywhere - we hardly found anything more than 2m/s and usually fluctuating between that and zero. Very frustrating. I got to Narrabri and pushed it past 90km in 4 hours and then had to leave the best climb I'd found all day to spiral down and land as JJ had already gone out of his way to retrieve me. It was easily on for Wee Waa (130km) and if I didn't have to be back in Sydney I'd have thanked JJ and sent him on his way. But looking at gliding down the train line west of Narrabri at 4pm on a Sunday afternoon with no retrieve was a very lonely prospect.

Thanks for the ride JJ!



Photo is the sunset on the way home as I managed to forgot to fly with my camera both days... :-(