The 16 of August will see me crawling off an aircraft at VIE, after a lousy long trip in three parts (BNE-SIN-HEL-VIE). I'll spend about 4 weeks in Austria, seeing my daughter and lots of friends for the first time in a few years, and also enjoying bureaucracy to the max (I need my passport renewed without losing the Oz visa).

If everything works as expected, I'll also do some flying around Vienna (Hohe Wand) and in the alps (Bischling/Werfen-Weng). Packing up my glider gear will definitely get me beyond the baggage allowance and I'll minimize things as much as i can...which means I'll have to waste time in Vienna buying stuff that I've got here in Oz but couldn't bring. Ah well, the joys of cheap(FSVO) air travel.

Flying in Austria also means that I need an IPPI level 5 license, so I had to work for my Advanced Paragliding rating and got it recently. I'm ready for some soaring!

The weekend before last a few of us spent at Killarney. Camping in the wintertime: a single-digit number of degrees plus, a fire and a good sleeping bag. Lots of fun to be had, trust me.

On the way there the car celebrated the 250000th km with working again. I did a bit of "cargo cult repair": fill in more power steering fluid, hope that the problems with the steering (it was locking up occasionally) go away. Works again. Problem solved.

On the way home on Sunday I got breath-tested. In the middle of nowhere: at least 10km in any direction to a house. The RBT was damn quick, took maybe 3 seconds altogether: you stop, the lone copper says "we're doing some RBT today; would you please blow into this tube...thanks, you're fine." and you drive off. No license check, not a single look at the rego sticker, nothing. Ah, I love this place.