Newcastle Hang Gliding Club

Every cloud has a silver lining
I have been sick, feeling drained and the silver lining is that I have had the time to catch up with little things like organising my photo albums. It is enthusing and I hope that summer will hurry along. Dawson has done well at getting Coppermine up and running again, well deserving of the title Awesome Dawson.

Read more for photos and stories of Wollombi, Mt Koskiusco, Manilla and our 260km flight along the Murray River to Swan Hill.

Here is a link to photos of my trip over the Wollombi

http://pics.nhgc.asn.au/thumbnails.php?album=192

The scenery is very special, with the park spread out as far as you can see to the SE, Yengo sticks up with its prominent flat top. The valey walls are vertical bare brown rock, looking warm and lit up by the sun in the afternoon. In contrast it was a very cold day at altitude. Base was 9000ft and given that it was spring, the air was so cold that my fingers were numb. It was so cold that it was painfull to pee.
I made some nice video over the mountains.
I have some photos (stored elsewhere) of some old pine trees out there too. the kind that live in a secret place, that have been there since the dinosoars walked the earth. It is a special place for sure. A great place to spend the afternoon. And when it was time to go home, I made a single 50km glide home. See the photo of me when I landed, there is a nice cloud street that disapears over the mountains. It was nice to arrive back to food and the warmth of being back on the ground.

Corryong 2010
This year I made a late afternoon flight just for a little bit of fun. I abandoned the race task at Corryong cup and flew over Mt Kosciusko in my Sting 3.

http://pics.nhgc.asn.au/thumbnails.php?album=196

The cloud base was around 7000ft and the mountain is higher than that. thankfully, the base was just a little higher on the bigger mountains. I made a glide straight into the side of Mt Townsend and climbed up the side of the main ridge for the next 4000ft. it was a slow climb with very little wind or drift and I certainly got the time to make some video, take some photos and enjoy being in this very prety place. Getting to the same level as the plateau was very interesting. The scenery realy opens up as you can look over the mountains towards Jindabine on the other side. Looking south there are mountains that go forever.

The tops are covered in tundra grass, bushes and wildflowers with rough rocks protruding. There is still snow on the southern faces even though it is Janurary.
Taking a photo and flying home is the sensible thing to do at this point but... I have done this trip before (out to thredbo in a sting 3), and taking a turnpoint over the top of the "big one" would make it that little bit better, as it is "just over thre'. So I fly over the summit of Kosci and take my photo. I find at this point that the lift at such a small clearance hight above the terrain is very poor and the wind (wich was so light with nearly no dirft on previous climbs) is accelerated as it tries to fit below the inversion and the mountain only a litte way underneath. The wind is being squished and is way too strong here to make a glide out to the edge of the main ridge....
I radio to my friends in goal and say that I am stuck and I have to keep going. The next plan is to survive, preferably in a convenient manner. I briefly consider landing on Kosci itself. easy enough but getting out again with my thousands of dollars of equipment would be problematic! It is very interesting to fly over the high mountains with such little clearance, this is scratching at 6500ft, I drift in zeros and let the wind take me. I know that there is a golf course somehere in the Thredbo valley and drift up to the southern edge of the plateu and take a look over the edge. Yuck, river, rocks, trees. I have missed the golf course, it is too far away now. I have to stay on the plateau and make an uneventful landing by Charlottes pass in a strong wind. While I am packing up, the Australian rowing team comes by and offers to help me to get out of there. Three strong men take my glider and rotate between tham. One of the girls carries my balast and I cary my harness out. I leave the glider at a carpark to pick it up the next day. I hitch into Jindabine, get a feed, meet some locals, take a ride in a boat thet is being trailered through town. Have dinner with my new hosts. Ed joins us by 11:00pm. It is the first time that we have showered and slept in a bed for a week.
We pickup the glider the next moring we have a leisurely breakfast the lorikeet in the photo is a 1yr old called Duckey. He likes people.

On Charlottes, picking up the glider, the wind is howling at this altitude. We wonder if we will be able to fly at all. Alan thinks so, they are going up the hill back at Corryong. The drive back is nice, I had not seen Thredbo or Gehi from the ground before. The mountains are very impressive, but I like them better from a hang glider. We make it back in time to have the task cancelled by an aproaching storm.

I had done this Koski trip 2 years earlier with a little more success. I suppose that this is relative, I mean that it was a little more convinent to land at Khancoban.
Here is the trip from 2 years before. Also in a sting 3:

http://pics.nhgc.asn.au/thumbnails.php?album=125&page=3

Thistle Hill to Swan Hill via Echuca
http://pics.nhgc.asn.au/thumbnails.php?album=197

Thistle hill is one of the locations that we flew on this years mystery mountain tour.
It is a 10km long SW ridge, nice for winter ridge soaring or awesome start point for a summer XC.
This day 7 HG pilots flew from footlaunch at Mt Broughton beside the town of Yea (NE of Melbourne)
Sam, Adam, Pat, Paul, Nick, Bosco and I flew and Mark drove a very long way for us.
We flew to the North, to turnpoint Echuca on the NSW border, then followed the Murray River to Swan Hill.
Story and more photos here:

http://www.ridethespiral.net/?p=1660

Manilla requires litte explaination.
For me, this is the competition that I won but my GPS failed to put down tracklog. I flew without a backup gps. Only once...
Good flying. good food. Good company.
http://pics.nhgc.asn.au/thumbnails.php?album=198

Hope you like the Pics.
Scott