Laurieton: Four sites in two days

The North Brother launch in Laurieton.  Faces NE.

Another outlanding with the skies still looking epic.

After repeated recommendations, I finally headed to Laurieton in New South Wales where there is an informal and quite active paragliding club centered around the High Adventure paragliding school run by Lee Scott.  There are an abundance of sites nearby suitable for all sorts of conditions.  The first day I was there, we flew from North Brother, a NE facing site about 10 km from the coast. Since we are near the coast, cloudbase is typically low with 4000 feet a good day and only slightly rising as you move inland. You also need to outrace the seabreeze to stay up. We launched in windy conditions, and I found myself going up and backwards after launch --- I'm blaming the 2 kg of sand in the trailing edge of my glider from flying at rainbow beach (people on 1-2's were penetrating no problem, and I'm heavy on my glider). Things settled after I pushed out of the compression, and I took the first strong thermal up and over the back of the hill, wandered around a bit with a couple other gliders in a second light climb, and then floated in zeros for awhile downwind until I started getting scared of the forests and wind and landed in an empty paddock. After packing up my wing the land owner, Stan, showed up and we had a real nice chat over coffee before he drove me back to my car.  Yet another interesting and friendly Aussie. I could grow to like this place... if they lowered the thermostat by several degrees.

After that flight we went for a brief coastal soaring session at a place called Harry's Lookout near Port Macquarie, which has a super tiny launch which is great fun to use. I had some continued issues with launching. I was using my trusty A's and D's launch which has kept me under control in high wind and strong thermic conditions, but this time I got picked up and dragged backwards into a tree behind launch (only about a few feet of dragging in reality since the launch is very small). I've put in some time since using the A's and C's instead which I am now fully converted too, including usage of the C's only for killing in high wind instead of the D's.  I think the two kilos of sand in my trailing edge played a role in this as well since they acted a bit like pulling the brakes.  After some wrangling, I managed to fly my wing out of the tree it had gotten snagged in and I was instantly flying and, once again, going backwards.  This time I quickly added a small amount of speedbar which got things right and I had a nice long soaring session (no bar needed outside the launch compression).  After landing I finally dumped the Rainbow Beach sand out of my wing.

Bonny's!  Another coastal ridge soaring site.

Next day we had a quick fly in the morning from a another coastal flying site called North-East Bonny's.  Afterwards, we headed inland to Katabunda, a small hill about 50 km SW from North Brother. We set up to launch halfway up the mountain since it was blasting with strong wind and super strong cycles on top of it.  We spent some time waiting for lulls and I had another launch event as I lifted my wing with a big cravat in it, stabilized it over my head with the A's and C's and then pumped the cravat out with the brake. When that side reinflated I stopped the resulting surge with the brakes and was quickly launched up and backwards.  I killed the wing with the brakes as fast as I could while managing a somersault through my lines.  At least I am entertaining people!  Never give up the C's in strong conditions (and put the wing back down to fix the cravat)!  That aside, my second launch attempt was a lot more tame.  So, Katabunda, another site I launched from first time and went XC without a clue where I was (and my GPS has no road names in this area!). Luckily there were two others who went XC, the first a new pilot with 10 hours and the second, Michael, a true para-addict.  After the other two ended up landing (the shade monsters got Michael, and a lack of vario got the new pilot), I continued on my way blundering over valleys and small mountains.  There was at least one helicopter wandering around at the same time.  Anyhow, I ended up about 20km away from launch after following what looked like a decent road through some hills and valleys.  I lost my XC mojo due to a combination of the strong winds, committing glides I would have had to do to get further, and a desire not to stretch out the retrieve any further.  A local, with a full on Australian country drawl picked me up and dropped me at the local general store where I met some interesting locals.  It turns out the helicopter was likely looking for pot plants, and at least one of the locals I met was probably growing it.  Lee and his crew picked me up and we headed back to civilization.  I've got to say, having a retrieve team makes XC flying so much nicer!

The next day, another flight off North Brother where I ended up being forced down by a pair of nesting Wedge Tails again (no damage, but I had to leave the thermal I was in since they kept diving at me; the technique of flapping the brakes just before they hit works well, but a few times I ended up just at the edge of spin or stall before the wedgie finally turned away.  I'll have to tweak my eagle-defense timing!).  Finally, the winds picked up too much and I headed on my way.  I'll be back though, since the people are great and the flying super fun!

After a quick roll of the internet weather dice, I ended up in Manilla gambling on light winds the next day.  Turned out the predictions in this case were correct, though in general weather predictibility has dropped close to zero in the last several years here according to the locals who all blame human induced climate change for that.  The wind was light east, and on my first launch attempted I floated off the launch only to be gently deposited in soft grass about 30 feet further on (it's a shallow launch).  I kited a bit, but decided to stop there and walk back to try again.  Second launch attempt went perfect with me going up instead of down.  I finally got my first real big and nice climb in Australia, a 5 m/sec (average) perfectly formed thermal all the way up to 2100m (of course I was dressed for a sled ride).  No wedge tail eagles, and I had a nice flight during which three of us attempted to make distance into a light North headwind (7-10 km/hr?).  Our resulting flight was about 20 km at a 10km/hr average speed before it finally shaded in from high cloud.  I floated around in zeroes at the end of the flight for awhile hoping it would clear up, but laziness won and I headed in to land next to the road in what looked like a beautifully soft tall grass field.  Well, about ten feet up I realized the soft tall grass was really very tall scrub brush.  I did a bit of a cartoon run trying to keep my wing above me while bush-bashing through the field.  Finally I ended up in a dead end where the bushes were too big to leap over and I had to bunch up my wing and continue on with my wing over my shoulder.  Plants, including evil invasive species like the Scots Thistle (a spiny painful mess that was imported here as an ornamental plant, but have subsequently taken over many fields), have been growing like mad here since last I flew here.

I'll be here in Manilla another couple weeks probably, then maybe onward to the Conondale area a bit North of Brisbane (the local club website is titled the Conondale Cross Country Flyers: no politics, no bullshit!).  In sympathy with my Canadian friends who have been enduring snow recently, tomorrow looks unflyable here and right now I'm sitting outside a laundromat in Manilla while my laptop screen is being bent by the crazy winds while I wait for my clothes to dry (a nice change from having to line dry stuff  only to discover bird poo on your clothes).