...is what I've had this weekend.

I said "flying or bust" on Friday evening, and somehow we had both. Drove out to Killarney Saturday morning, and the wind was westerly and gusty. So we sat around the western launch for a few hours, watching the conditions.

Parawaiting at its best. I took an afternoon nap. Paraglider bags are fairly comfortable backrests, with all the foam and soft stuff in the harnesses.

Eventually the conditions seemed to improve a bit, there were still some gusts but not as strong as before. I decided to give it a go. Rob dug out his cameraphone.

Looks nice, doesn't it? The first photo is of me just getting to sit back into the harness, the other is maybe 5 seconds later.

But, unfortunately, the flying was anything but enjoyable: really rough, being blown backwards at times, elevator-style lift and sink etc. After about 15 minutes I gave up and landed.

Sunday they dragged me out of my tent at 07:25. "We're missing our window!" The wind had howled all night long, I was convinced it would be blown out. At 08:30 I launched, into nice conditions. Half an hour later the conditions were very much Not Nice anymore, and about 09:15 I spot-landed on Rob. The cameraphone again did its magic, and captured the last seconds of my approach (148kb AVI) until Rob had to duck :-)

Half an hour later the wind was howling really strongly, and on the drive home I found that the wind in the Canungra area was about as bad as out west, so the "Killarney partisans" may have had the best flying of the weekend (meagre that it was).