BP Cup Round 1 - Scottish Borders

Saturday 9th May - First day of the competition was not flyable. It was raining and windy.

Sunday 10th May - After a little walk up Broughton Heights hill a task was set for a goal field 44k away. The wind was quite light and but to the right of us it looked like it was raining and the clouds to the other side were building nicely. I eventually took off, I went down below take off but managed to scrape back up again. Ten minutes later I had a collapse, when I looked up at the wing I saw more of the top side than I would have liked :-( I let my hands up and it came out and I flew away. It took me a few minutes to persuade myself not to land and I got enough height to go over the back. I landed after 10k which I was a little disappointed about but in another way quite glad to be down on the ground.




Monday and Tuesday were beautiful sunny days but too windy. On Monday we did have a long hike up a hill with paragliders only to walk them all the way down again, but before we did we took a walk along the top for a fantastic view (and I don't mean me).



Tuesday evening was an open mic night and I eventually after printing the chords for the guitarists sang "Heart of Glass".

Wednesday was the start of the British Open, but because of the bad weather forecast not many people turned up. For good reason too the competition was finally cancelled on Friday morning.

BP Cup results after Round 1

My First XC of 2009

Saturday 2nd May looked a good day to go flying. The wind was quite light but I thought I could do with some ground handling practice if nothing else. When I got to the hill there were already about ten paragliders already flying so there was no time to waste!



I had one short flight of about 15 minutes and slope landed, it wasn't pretty but it was better than a walk up from the bottom. I decided that I had earnt my lunch so had a little break. By the time I finished the wind was starting to pick up nicely so I got ready a off I went again. This time I got in a thermal that took me up to cloudbase, which was about 1000 metres above take off. At that point and with that height I couldn't help but go xc.



This is a view of Church Stretton. I was already getting a little cold at this point and had trouble trying to switch off the camera. In the end I used my teeth!

One hour and fifteen minutes later I landed at Brown Clee which is around 20k away. I packed up and walked for about two hours before I got a lift. I was a bit tired and sore the day after but it was worth it. :-)

First Flight

I flew yesterday in Snowdonia, North Wales. It was my first flight in almost ten months so I was a little nervous. It was a long walk up, I'm glad I kept up those gym sessions now. The take off area was just covered in braken, which loves to hold on to the lines. I eventually took off and went straight up, great I thought, then went to the left to stay in the lift then bang, a collapse on the left. I did what I needed to do and it came out. Phew! The rest of the flight was less eventful and after about twenty minutes I landed at the bottom. The red blob is where I took off from.

Camper van search successful

I have found a camper van :-) It's not the van conversion type that I first thought about but having looked inside them I soon realised that there wasn't much space and if I'm going to live in this thing for a few months then I would have to look for something bigger. The camper that I found has a bed above the driver's seat so it's ideal for going to bed without the hassle of moving everything about. Don't need that after a long day and a few drinks!

Took it for a test drive on Monday and I can tell you it's no Subaru. Manual choke and no power steering, but it's great once it warms up and on a straight line :-)

The weather has not been too good for flying, it's been alright for golfing. I'm almost thinking I should have shipped my paraglider and took the clubs as carry on!

Where's the sun?

This is my 3rd day back in the UK. I decided to go for a run this morning, it was a little foggy but at least it wasn't raining. Didn't go too far but my ears were frozen, too bad I packed all my hats. :-(



As flying didn't look like an option today I looked at some camper vans instead.