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March 5, 2013

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Women with Wings 3 – Day 4

Neither the paragliders nor the hangies flew yesterday, and it looked like the paragliders would not be able to fly today either due to the winds.

But we had the option of The Pines (Buckland Ridge), which is is a Southerly site about an hour and a half drive to launch.

We all eventually got our gear together and headed off in convoy.

Buckland Ridge that runs East/West

I decided to try out the Fun 2 today. I needed to practice launching and landing so I thought I’d try and get the technique right on a beginner glider first to get the feeling of a good launch into my body memory (because to be honest I don’t think I ever launched well).

Me launching at The Pines, Tony Barton patiently instructing (photo thanks to Eva)

It was a nice flight just ridge-soaring and chatting on the radio to the girls (we had fun instructing Zhenshi and Theresa how to get down the hill in the cars as it’s quite confusing).

Olli was flying the Moyes Mojo, trying all sorts of different flying styles. He looks so comfortable flying, much more so than anyone of us. I guess he probably has thousands of hours more than us too :)

Nobody wanted to land in the undulating bombout but there was a streamer there so that’s where I went. Almost did a belly landing because I could get unzip fully and get my feet out of the harness. I had boots on today and they didn’t slip out as easy as my runners! I got them out at the last minute and landed the very forgiving Fun 2 without a problem. Thanks God for floaters :)

Brigitte in the Pines bomb out with her Falcon

Eva landing on her own ...one of her first 'inland outlandings'

Kath checking the keel

After a couple of drinks in the Brewery, Jorj has a great idea to take me and Carol up to ‘The Horn’ on top of Mt Buffalo.

It’s only a 15 min walk from the car park, so not too strenuous but the views are amazing and worth it, though it was FREEZING up there in the howling Southerly!!

 

 

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March 5, 2013

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Women with Wings 3 – Day 3

We had a whole lot of rain last night and it looked from the bleak morning that it wasn’t going to stop. However, when you have excellent mentors and instructors and a bulging schedule of events, there was no chance of getting bored. Thanks to Theresa our driver we had more videos to watch of [...]

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March 5, 2013

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Women with Wings 3 – Day 2

Days start early – 8am. Jamie, Jorj and I grab some breakfast at Carols and rush out the door, musing on what was in store for us today. Everyday we drive the 6kms from Carol’s place in Wandiligong, down the valley from Bright. I love it because it’s nature at its best. Hills rising on [...]

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February 26, 2013

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Women With Wings – Day 1

The forecast was for overdevelopment around midday, but it never really happened in the Mystic valley. Olli said we should head up to Mt Buffalo, even though the forecast was not ideal but once we got up there the conditions were perfect. We all setup and for me anyway the nerves started to build. I’m [...]

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February 26, 2013

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Women With Wings 3 – Chore day

With nearly 50 women registered and raring to go, it’s shaping up to be a fun event. The mentors are here and everyone is getting excited for some great flying and hanging out with the girls. Bright has had some awesome flying weather lately with Olli Barthelmes doing a lovely +200km triangle 2 weeks ago [...]

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January 17, 2013

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Christmas served hot and cold

We didn’t really know where we were going to spend Christmas. We are fortunate enough to know really cool people in Stanwell and Pearl Beach who invited us to theirs, but in the end the call of family was the strongest. It was my first ‘family’ Christmas in over 10 years so I was kinda [...]

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January 13, 2013

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Pig Hill

A short drive into the Brindebella Ranges and you stumble upon a lovely little hill called ‘Pig’. I have no clue why it’s called Pig but it offers lovely views over Canberra from the North.   As a young pup, I wrote about it waay back in 2010 on my first trip there Giddy with [...]

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January 13, 2013

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Flying at ‘The Lake’

My first experience of the legendary ‘Lake George’ near the border of NSW and the ACT (on the NSW side) was after a weekend in Tumut about 3 years ago. The first thing I noticed was the absence of a ‘Lake’. Yeah there was a bit of what looked like water a few KMs away [...]

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January 6, 2013

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Gulgong Classic 2013

I can’t believe I haven’t written a blog in over 2 months. Now there’s way too much to catch up on to go into any detail of what went on so I’ll write some short posts to spare my memory! Gulgong happened and it was a fun comp. I always love to spend time in [...]

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