It's raining paragliders

I'm still here and haven't been washed away by the huge floods in Queensland.  But, I have not posted for a long time because it has been raining in Eastern Australia for the last month or so leaving me with nothing interesting to write about. You would think that I would pick up a different hobby, or otherwise explore the world, but no... my version was to explore the pie selection at the local bakery, sit in the library, read books (finished all Steven Erikson's Malazan Book of the Fallen series), and stare at weather charts in a failed attempt at mentally manipulating the universe.

As a high point of the rainy season, I spent the holidays with Lawrence (paraglider pilot, erstwhile Canadian) and his family up on the Sunshine Coast in Queensland. Don't let the name deceive you --- it was still raining almost the whole time I was there. Lawrence just moved to Australia a couple months ago, in the midst of the worst rains Queensland has ever seen, so I felt compelled to help him find a place where there was sunshine and heat.  After all, you could tell he was Canadian just by how pale he was. We hopped in my paragliding-adventure-mobile and chose a route down South that bypassed all the current flooding in Queensland.  About 10 hours later we arrived in Manilla, NSW where it was hot and sunny (this was a temporary aberration).

There was a strong inversion present most of the days we were there which made climbing a bit of a patience game. My personal goal is still to fly more than 100km. I did not succeed this time around, but did improve my personal best distance besting a flight I had last year in Golden, BC back in Canada! On this day in Manilla, I launched a rather late into beautiful conditions and I had a real fun time in the air bouncing off the inversion and occasionally getting above it.  I did not have any company in the air as the other XC addicts had left earlier.  Here's my track log for 87km. The next day I wanted a repeat, but on my first glide from cloudbase my speed-bar line snapped (bad pulley in my harness). I still kept going and experimented with pulling the speedbar lines with my hands but found it too hard as I could only hold them for about 30 seconds before my arms and fingers gave out. Anyway, it was too rough to fly on bar without my hands on the D's anyway. I figured without speedbar I wasn't going to make much distance so after 10 km, I turned around and punched into the head wind without speedbar, which made for a very slow but interesting return flight to the landing zone.  Lawrence made a personal best flight as well!  Three cheers for Manilla, my favorite Australian site!

The Playground in Maleny, QLD.

We headed back from Manilla to the Sunshine Coast just as the air became super unstable and thunderstorm-y.  Our plan was for Lawrence to start driving back to Queensland and for me to fly as far as I could and he'd pick me up on the way. Well, despite the epic planning, I ended up bombing out after launch!  There were some epic flights posted during those next couple days.  Oh well... I'm not into dodging storms too much anyway.

Ridge soaring at the Playground

After returning from Manilla, we decided to find out about flying inland of the Sunshine coast.  I've gotten used to easily finding information on flying on the internet, so was frustrated a bit with the lack of details I found. We talked to a local pilot on the phone, but in the end we finally found the sites by driving to where we thought the sites were and looking for paragliders. First we found a coastal flying addict on the coast by spying his paraglider in the distance. Unfortunately conditions got too strong as we chatted and we didn't get to fly. Next day we found a local paraglider pilot near Maleny who took off in the middle of the day to show us a local site, The Playground. Miraculously, it was on for ridge soaring (though very light) when we arrived despite the general rainy and overcast conditions. Lawrence and I soared for awhile in gentle conditions. I top landed next to a cow who was looking even more bored than they usually look... not even slighty interested because there isn't much difference if it is raining paragliders or water.