We're still here!

David has neglected the blog for almost three months, but here's a quick summary of the rest of March:

Long weekend of 12-14 March 2011 (the 14th was Canberra Day):  we went to Albury to visit Leigh Black (a science teacher who went on exchange to Kamloops a couple of years ago), and then on to the mountains near Bright, where we camped at a beautiful spot by the Buckland River in the Riverview Caravan Park, and toured the gorgeous gorge on Mount Buffalo.

Our magnificent second-hand tent

Delicious beers at the Bright Brewery on Sunday evening (Jen really liked the raspberry lambic), and most excellent fish & chips in Corryong on the way home.

Just one of many spectacular views of the gorge on Mt. Buffalo

The Snowy Mountains are truly amazing, a vast area of bleached dead trees owing to the massive fire of 2003.

16-19 March 2011:  four consecutive days of flying!

20 March 2011:  occasional light showers, so we had a look at the Molongo River gorge just outside Queanbeyan. Not as grand as the one at Mt. Buffalo, but a very pretty sight just the same.

Molongo River near Queanbeyan

25-27 March 2011:  the long-awaited visit to Jervis Bay!  We visited the Botanic Gardens, did some snorkelling, and saw lots of rosellas and rainbow lorikeets (as well as kangaroos, wallabies, and an echidna).

Jen in her glory

Deep in the Botanic Gardens

Flight log, continued...

Tuesday (8 March) - two flights at Spring Hill, the first unexpectedly short (about 5 minutes) on a gorgeous afternoon of good thermalling conditions, and the second unexpectedly long (about 10 minutes) in the evening after the wind had become very light.  Unlucky lull in the first instance, and surprising "buoyancy" in the second.

Wednesday (9 March) - beautiful ~1.75 hours of mixed thermalling and ridge soaring at Spring Hill.

Spring Hill launch, looking towards landing paddock

A little up time

Thursday (3 March) was a frustrating afternoon of watching the wind blow a little too hard at Spring Hill, but on Friday, after some more watching and waiting, David was finally able to launch safely around 17h30 or so and had a very smooth and pleasurable flight.

Al and Faith Bailey

Meanwhile, Jen's friends and former NorKam colleagues (before they retired), Al and Faith Bailey, had come to pay a visit.  They wanted to see some kangaroos, and their wish was granted!  We enjoyed seeing them and hearing about their adventures, and it was a pity they had to hit the road again in the morning.






But Lake George was very much on on that Saturday (5 March), and David had a wonderful 2.5-hour flight from Geary's, up to the Collector launch and beyond, and back, in fairly strong thermal conditions.  Sunday also was good, though it took him two tries to get a soaring flight in, and that was a late ridge-soaring event.

A little down time

Short but good flight on Saturday (26 February) while Jen went to an exchange teacher event at Batemans Bay.  Perhaps eventually she'll blog regarding the gold mining history and Aboriginal "bush tucker" skills she learned about.  Or perhaps not.  She seems a bit too busy living life here to blog about it so far.

One of our dear readers, on the other hand, manages to enjoy life a great deal and blog about it in detail.  Anne-Marie and Les Sainsbury (Les is a hang glider pilot, of course) live in Victoria, BC, and Anne-Marie writes about her daily experiences at http://thedogwalkinggardener.wordpress.com/.

Jen at Bicentennial Park

Back here in the Canberra area, Sunday (27 February) through Tuesday (1 March) have been devoted to non-flying activities, in a departure from the recent norm.  Sunday we climbed Mount Jerrabomberra, which is an easy walk from here.  We took perhaps two hours or so for the excursion.  Monday we strolled over to the nearby Bicentennial Park.  Tuesday evening was the monthly ACTHPA (Australian Capital Territory Hang Gliding and Paragliding Association) meeting.  Today, Wednesday (2 March), David has finished playing his violin for now and made his lunch, and is waiting to see whether the wind direction at Geary's will improve enough to justify a visit there this afternoon.  Meanwhile, there are always things that need doing on the computer, and lots of nice books here...

Life is sweet

David certainly hasn't had much to complain about lately.  Violin in the morning, flying in the afternoon, Jen's charming company in the evening, every day this week so far.  There is scarcely time left for blogging!

Here, mainly for the interest of any pilots that might be reading this, is a summary of the last 6 days' flying:

Sunday (20 February):  first flight at Spring Hill, mentioned in the previous post.  [track log]

Monday:  first (ridge-assisted) thermalling flight in the Litesport, at Spring Hill.  [track log]

Tuesday:  ridge-assisted thermalling at Collector in the afternoon, and ridge soaring at Geary's in the evening sea breeze.  [track log]

Wednesday:  sled run at Geary's in the evening, followed by a barbecue at the home of a pilot (the one from whom I had borrowed the Moyes Mission previously) and his fiancée.  Nic is quite a character, and has built several "tall bikes" by welding frames together and in one case constructing a very special hexagonal frame.

Thursday:  two great hours at Spring Hill in the afternoon.  [track log]

Friday:  short flight at Spring Hill in the early evening.

Things are looking promising for today (Saturday, 26 February) too!

Fun in the Litesport

Saturday (19 February) was an early shopping day, and a rainy afternoon during which Jen did some school prep work.  We had a beautiful walk in the evening after the rain cleared.

Sunday was windy, but Jen was keen to see a bit more of the countryside, so we packed sandwiches and a glider and headed up to Spring Hill.  Even windier there, so we stopped in at a place called Poacher's Pantry just across the road from the flying site, where Jen did a bit of wine-tasting and we each had a tiny lunch on a huge plate.  Lovely spot, and very good food, but rather pricey.

Colours not quite as bright as dB usually
likes, but a great glider all the same.

The wind was by then hinting at diminishing a bit, so we went up the hill.  And after getting set up and doing a lot of hang-waiting, David was finally able to launch in suitably mellow conditions for a soaring flight that could have gone on a lot longer but was terminated before dark in an unusual spasm of prudence on the part of the pilot in ostensible command.

David gets his new glider

On Thursday (17 February), David picked up the long-awaited Litesport 4 from Phil Robinson, who was kind enough to transport it from Stanwell Park, a popular coastal soaring site near Sydney, where none other than Steve Moyes (of Moyes Gliders) had brought it.  Phil owns the top (launch) and landing field at Spring Hill, where he shares a house with his wife Marian and currently their 25-year-old son (their other two kids are in their mid-thirties and have moved out).  Spring Hill is a great flying site, but a bit tricky for doing a first flight in a relatively unfamiliar glider (David only once flew a Litesport before, and that was many years ago in Florida), so observation rather than participation was the watchword (pardon the pun) on Thursday evening.

But then Friday (18 February) turned out to be perfect at Geary's, where the launch is easy and the landing "paddock" is the vast Lake George bed.  The glider immediately inspired confidence, and David flew many miles along the ridge to the north (just past the Collector launch) and back.  Track picked up as usual by http://aprs.fi/?call=va7ina and recorded in altitude-colourized detail for Google Earth viewing here.  No pictures of the glider yet...perhaps today!

Oz

Gorgeous smell of eucalyptus (gum) trees in the air this morning after all the rain.  One certainly feels one is in a very different place, here Down Under, with all the unfamiliar bird calls, the kangaroos hopping around (we see them every day now, especially on our evening walks where the nearby nature reserve has become our favourite haunt), and all the wonderful place names such as Bungendore, Jerrabomberra, Gundaroo, and Tuggeranong sprinkled amongst the British and Irish names.

Quiet days

Sled run (quick trip from top to bottom) at Geary's on Tuesday (15 February).  Rain was predicted for later but didn't arrive until mid-Wednesday.  Giving us a good soak now.

Valentine's Day

Australians don't make much fuss over Valentine's Day (they just get on with it), and Jen had her flowers already and was working late at school at a "meet the teacher" evening for the parents, so David went off to chase the merry winds again, and was rewarded with an hour's soaring at Collector.  One pair of the parents that went to meet Jen turned out to have seen him in the air the evening before as they were driving home along the Federal Highway (which runs along the base of the ridge overlooking Lake George).

Fish and chips for supper again...righteous!

Soaring at Lake George

Saturday (12 February) was mainly spent shopping, and in the evening David mostly finished building his roof rack.  On Sunday morning he put the final touches to it.

David's Subaru with roof rack and roo bar

And lo and behold, the wind was perfect on Sunday for flying at "Geary's" overlooking Lake George.  Lake George is usually dry, but this year it is partly covered with water (visible in the distance in this picture).  To foot-launching aviators, it is a huge, ideal landing field, or "paddock" as the Aussies say.

Some horrid creature setting up David's borrowed glider at Geary's launch

The sweet place

David starts building a roof rack

Inspired by the strong, lightweight, cantilevered design of his last hang glider carrier (which was built from retired and semi-retired hang glider airframe parts), David picked up some new(!) aluminum tubing for AU$85 from Ullrich in Hume near Queanbeyan, not having an abundant supply of old gliders hereabouts, and began building an even better one.

Sky over Queanbeyan

After a rainy day, the sky this Friday evening turned particularly gorgeous.

The lovely Jennifer

More flying

On Wednesday (9 February), Collector was "on" again, and David enjoyed a soaring flight there (see the track log, or visit http://www.acthpa.org/forums/viewtopic.php?f=1&t=2028 for even more gory details).  Still in Nic Welbourn's glider, though a second-hand Litesport 4 is due to arrive in Queanbeyan after the coming weekend.

Hang gliding at last!

Louisa helping a pilot control his glider in the wind

The weather hadn't been conducive for much flying after David got a suitable set of wheels, but an instructor (Curt Warren) was planning a trip up to Lake George on Tuesday (8 February), making possible the "check flight" which is actually a prerequisite for hang glider pilots to fly legally here, and the weather looked promising.  So that flight transpired without incident at the Collector site (see http://www.acthpa.org/home/files/ACTHPA_Site_Guide.kmz for the Google Earth view of the local sites) in the afternoon.  Then it was off to Geary's, another Lake George site, for an evening flight in the sea breezes that often penetrate this far inland at this time of year, in the glider borrowed from Nic Welbourn (the previously mentioned club VP).  That flight turned out to be a bit wild as the wind picked up pretty fiercely, but it was still easy to get out to the lake (which is vast and dry) safely for a gentle touchdown with no flare.

In the pictures here, Louisa is shown helping another pilot get to launch (she also drove David's car down to the landing "paddock", affectionately known as the Collector "bomb-out" or BO for short), and a student pilot is shown being pursued by an eagle, probably a wedge-tail.

Eagle chases hang glider!

Sunday with Nancy and Ray

On Sunday morning, we got together with Nancy and Ray for coffee and brunch at Benedict House, a charming little crafts-oriented place in Queanbeyan.  Then to the Kingston market, which has everything from exotic foods to wonderful sculptures and Aboriginal paintings.  And then to the Botanic Gardens, where we once again saw kangaroos in addition to the outrageous flora and birds.  Jen got a few pictures; here are the roos and a lizard.

Batemans Bay

Saturday, 5 February, two other exchange teachers (Catherine Postlethwaite from England and Olivia Sieber from Toronto) and we headed out to a barbecue hosted by a local former exchange teacher (Cheryl Harper) and her husband.  We met several other visiting exchange teachers and their families if any, and quite a few Australians who had previously been on exchange, almost always to Canada!  Played in the mild surf for a while on the way home.  Nice spot.

Kangaroos

On our evening walk, we finally saw some kangaroos on the lower slopes of Mount Jerrabomberra, and at quite close range too.

National Gallery

Jen sat through a load of curriculum nonsense in the morning at Merici College, but then she and a bunch of other Art teachers went to the National Gallery in the afternoon.  It was really good.

Cars

On Wednesday morning (2 February), David rode over to Canberra Auto Auctions on Frank's bicycle (the tires of which D had pumped up, and the saddle of which he had raised, on Monday) to pick up the Subaru, and then drove back home.  Probably did some fiddling then.  Met Jen after school in the rental car as usual, and then took her to the car dealer to pick up the Camry.  Off to the airport in tandem to drop off the rental car, and then home in the Camry.

The work week begins!

So now the fun begins.  Jen goes off for a seemingly interminable week of learning to be a good Catholic or some such programming, and David gets into the art of creative unemployment.  But wait - first we need cars!  Monday (31 January) was mostly a survey of what the web had to offer, which with jet lag tended to bring nose in contact with keyboard.  Good job there was a violin in the house, to ward off the somnolence.

That evening, Ray mentioned something called The Trading Post which Google had not revealed, and their web site had lots of entries for Canberra Auto Auctions in the low, low price range one of us was targetting.  So off went David on Tuesday (1 February) to view the selection, and picked out a couple of candidates, a sweet little red Peugeot for her and a suitably seasoned (1993) 4WD Subaru SportsWagon for him.  Brought her over after school, and she found a much better choice for herself, namely a 1994 indigo Toyota Camry.  Reasoning that $2500 (hers) + $1400 (his) was a bit more than we wanted to pay, we offered $3000 for the pair, and that was readily accepted.  Hands shaken all round, and a mutual agreement to meet the next day.

Meanwhile, earlier that afternoon, taking a break from cars for a bit, David discovered that the local foot-launched aviation club was to have its monthly meeting that very evening.  So off we went, and met some locals, two of whom were hang glider pilots amidst the swarm of paraglider pilots.  One of the righteous two bought us drinks, and the other (the VP, who chaired the meeting in the absence of the prez that evening) subsequently loaned me a glider.  More on that later.

Settling in

After breakfast on Sunday (30 January), we got together with Nancy and Ray who took us to one of the local markets full of produce, fish, etc.  Getting onto the Internet was by this time a priority for us, and we got that set up as well.  Not enough ADSL ports at the local central office or whatever they call it here, so we went with Telstra's service that runs over the 3G mobile phone network and costs about $15 per gigabyte.  Start-up cost was $129 for the modem that talks to the 3G network on the one side and gives local wi-fi on the other, with a built-in wireless router.  The modem is tiny and runs on a battery that is rechargeable from a USB port, so it will be particularly convenient when Jen wants to chase David on hang gliding flights, as his location will be visible every minute at http://aprs.fi?call=va7ina if he remembers to bring his GPS receiver/2-meter transmitter along and Jen has her laptop with her.

Weather was pretty much breaking records for heat, but we still enjoyed walks around the neighbourhood in the evenings, and continue to do so.

Praeludio

Before we left Barnhartvale, we had the pleasure of meeting Frank (the teacher with whom Jen is exchanging), his wife Alison, and their two children Liam (5) and Phoebe (16 months).  We spent a wonderful day with them, and since Liam had never seen snow before and there was a mild spell on they day they arrived (26 January), the first priority was to build a snowman.  Their blog at http://www.frankandalison.blogspot.com, which inspired us to start this one, has a picture of that magnificent sculpture.

On Thursday, 27 Jan 2011, after months of preparation, we finally departed with the maximum allowed quantity of luggage (and slightly more, with a little grace from Air Canada).  Short hop to Vancouver, where Jen's brothers Nick and Tim and their respective partners Annette and Garth met us at the airport to eat and drink awhile, and then a delightful 15-hour flight to Sydney in which the first 1/3 of the flight featured an extraordinary amount of strong turbulence.  It was of course already Saturday in Oz when we arrived.  We picked up the rental car and beamed on down the wrong side of the road to Queanbeyan, the suburb of Canberra in which Alison and Frank's beautiful and spacious home is located.

We were met by Nancy and Ray, who had the keys to the house, on the edge of town.  They are good friends of Alison and Frank, and Nancy is Canadian.  They showed us around a bit, and have been most charming company whenever we get together or talk on the phone.  With their help, we did a bit of shopping for essentials, had fish and chips for supper, somehow managed to stay up until dark, and then had a good night's sleep.