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.