2 Days of local flying

Yesterday I had quite a lot of work on the glider and in particularly getting the old harness attached correctly to the glider. My fingers are not made for hard-to-reach safety rings... So it was quite late until I launched. Being pretty windy, I flew for an hour and had my first taste of Australian air after a three month non-flying break.

Today was less windy and Trent, Blenkie and others decided on a 180 km triangle. I launched with them and soon after we had a group of 7 or 8 at start height. I noticed that my elbow was rubbing the handle of the reserve chute and had a quick look to check it. One pin was almost loose! Trying to put it back in place, I almost unlocked the second pin. No way I was going to continue flying with the risk that the parachute would fall out. So I landed and went to the supermarket for a quick solution to the problem: rubber bands.

Did a second launch around 2:30 PM and flew for 90 minutes. Felt like 1) there were quite some turbulences and 2) the glider was quite sensitive to them. Sprog measuring tomorrow...

And to top it off, I blew an upright on landing. First one on the 13.5. Didn't plan on using half of my reserve upright on the 2nd flying day in Australia!

Arriving in Australia

Just a few interesting days. Upon arrival I headed for Glen and Jamie's place and where we celebrated christmas with Heather and Mart and I was able to shake off most of the jetlag. Some walking, slacklining and Xboxing filled those 2 coastal days. Can you think of a better setting for a slackline?

Yesterday was quite an international make-it-all-come-together day. It started by driving the Kiwi-car to the Sydney airport to pick up Canadians Rob and Leif and hand the Kiwi-car over to them. From there, we picked up my glider from the shipping company and the headed to the Moyes factory, because Michelle was going to take my glider to Forbes and I was asked to drive Vicky's car there. At the factory, I met Polona. Polona was supposed to stay the night at Vicky's and I was going to stay at Kath's place. Since that was quite an organizational overhead, we decided not to stay in Sydney any longer and head for Forbes immediately. And yes, we did do the tourist thing and stopped at the Three Sisters in the Blue Mountains:

All in all, it was dark when we drove the last 150 km and yes, you do have to watch out for wildlife. After cruising around for a while, I had to hit the brakes quite hard when a Wallaby suddenly showed up in the middle of the road. We were warned for the rest of the trip.

Arriving late in Forbes, where the Australian Jazz convention is going on, meant that we didn't find a place to sleep, so Forbes airfield was the place to go. And this was sunrise:

My glider should be here tonight. Let the games begin!

Received the Adidas Evil Eyes

I've been flying with the Evil Eyes for 3 years now and they've been the best corrective sunglasses I could find. They've proven strong, provided good vision and have swappable glasses for varying conditions.

So I'm very happy to announce that Adidas provided me with the newest model of the Evil Eye. Many thanks to Optiek Vandeweghe for helping me out in finding the right glasses, 3 years ago and now:

Damaged landing gear

Slipped on the stairs yesterday. Hope the damage is only aesthetic, but I'm not sure about that.