DB's Blog: Fever broken.

Well I managed to break my bombout fever today. The wind was very North on Mt Tamborine today. I didn't expect a good day at all. But we headed up and found that there were times when the wind was coming up the face of launch and not too cross wind. But while I was setting up the wind came straight down the road and nearly blew a few gliders over. We kept setting up hoping we could get off the hill. A task was set of Rathdowney with an infinite line.

I managed to launch into a blustery Northerly wind. But I found some lift half way to the bombout. Then climbed to about 3,200ft. I followed Wrangi and Big trev over to Misery ridge where we found a reasonable climb to around 4,000ft. We then went down towards Witheren peak and found some light lift near there with a wedgetail eagle. Fortunately he wasn't aggressive and didn't attack any of us. Although I later picked up old Trev who told us that he got savaged by a Wedgie near Witherin doing much damage to his glider. He was not happy.

Crossing the Kerry valley I lost Big Trev and Wrangi and found myself low on the West side of the Jinbroken range. I picked a landing field and headed for it. Suddenly I hit a good thermal which took me back to 4,000ft. I headed for Rathdowney but ended up low again just 8km short. Again I picked a landing field, but I found another good thermal and was able to get back up to 3,700ft. I thought of heading south towards Kyogle, but looking at the sky and with the strong Northerly. I thought a landing in the hills near the range would not be pleasant and decided to land at Rathdowney.

I took these pics and landed in a gusty North Easterly wind in a field just south of Rathdowney along with Ronald, Cam, Jonny, Tony, Wrangi and Neil. Big Trev dropped just 3kms short, but may have got goal anyway with the infinite line. A big thanks to Mark G, who decided not to launch in dodgy conditions and came to take Neil, Old Trev and myself back to Canungra.