Coolabah and south again .

So many mosquitos.... let's get out of here ! I had 2 aborted launches trying to launch cross wind to the road and surrounded by trees with 40kg on your back . I decided to change roads and get the wind in my face , much better... off and away !
Launched from many of the "closed roads due to flooding" in the area . Initally we were going to go west at Bourke the day before and head over towards Moree, but the roads are closed due to the high water. A quick climb out to 1000ft and tail wind again 74 km /hr then 80, then at 1800ft haha... 105 km/hr with speed bar . Again leaving my ground team behind, catch me if you can ! Nyngan coming up ,just as I hit the edge of town the first bumps hit ... oh here we go again air grew cold , wind shifted, road changed direction now it was drop down to 300ft hang on and see how far I can ride it out.... I was on the ground by 8:30am and 103 km later . Landed at a dirt air strip a station. Owners said make yourself at home and we went itto town . Coffee and meat pies for breaky , and a swim at the pools for some laps. Most all small towns have outdoor pools and are in good shape nice way to spend a few hrs. Washing cloths and waiting... waiting .. wiating !
Evening flight getting off at about 5pm , moderate north winds storm Cunimbs to the south a 20 km flight and I was on the ground again. ground speed was 64km hr. then 54, then 45 and I could seethe change comming , cold air and SE winds ahead time to land , her comes the shit for the next 3 days !
We are not sitting in the rain , on the side of the road . This morning after we went out delayed due to some light showers , get ready start the motor uhh start the motor ..... no go , no spark ! Damn ,it also stared to get windy... abort the day !
Changed some electronic the parts on the motor and still no go , let change the motor now . so that is what Craig is doing the others are fixing broken parts on everything, mainly the camper ,and doing the internet thing ! Camper is falling apart slowly ! Let see if wombat our camper , will make it ?? Now sitting in the rain trying to decide where to go and when , forecast is for 3 days of rain, heavy at times !
Life in the outback !! cheers

The big day ....

Well a late start this morning , big groggy from the beer. Starting at about 6:15 take off from the shop yard , quick dash across town and then south with a tail wind . Climb to 1600ft and at 75km /hr , soon to be up to 102km /hr by 64km mark , nice sweet air ! As I have found out OZ air does not stay this way for long, at about 134 km the wind came cross and cold. Ahhh here comes the shit !!
Dropping down, now ground crew in sight for the past 1.5hrs , I really thought maybe it would get better and had few landind area's the road is narrow , and tree lined and a cross wind to the road , not going to be a nic earea for landing or taking off. Tough it thru... but 9am I could see fields and open country, yes landing options now and I can drop lower. This area is flooding and has so much water everywhere river is 9m above where it should be. Landed short of Bouke so my ground crew could find me about 280 km and landing by 10:am ... sweet !!
Waited for ground crew about 1 hr in the heat and flies, they stopped to fuel up and were traveling at about 75km /hr .... our truck named Sasquach runs on LPG their is limited LPG out here and about 4 out of 5 staions were not working .so were running on jerry cans and hope . Spent a nice afternoon in Bourke and was in the air by 3:30pm slight cross wind from the NE and ground speed 54km /hr. Managed a rough ride this evening to Coolabah narrow hwy lots f tree's , was good to be down .
Camping next to the pub after a few beers, food and lots of mosquitos it was off to bed , feeling sore and tired !, but happy !!

Its a Cunnamulla evening ....

Yes , a good afternoon CU's everywhere ... lets go , got my washing done, well fed, coffee ... ahhh time for some Adrenaline ! Light to moderate winds but eastery , made a run to 134km landing at sunset , last part of the flight was great and smooth , the middle part was not bad but had to fly thru some light rain and some small CN's all around . At landing a Oz pilot came over and invitede us to stay at his house for the night . He has a grape picking operation and farm , the starter motor is going on the engine again so he lent us the shop to do repairs. A few beers later and Craig had the motor up and running.
I was doing my own repairs myself but have stepped aside and let the mechanic fix it now , keeps him busy and I have more time for the blog now .
John biggs....if your reading , thanks for your place and for all your hospitality ,and some parts. Turns out he rides Advanture bikes as well and does tri's , so he let me go for a burn on his 990 KTM ,,, sweet ,, I know what I'm getting soon ! Hope to ride with you next season.

Lets keep pushing ahead ... westwards now !

I ended up flying a short flight out of St george in the evening at about 5:30pm and landing a couple of hrs later about 70km away . Stopping in the middle of nowhere. Spent the night on the side of the road and all the next day storms and wind and rain , eat, sleep and read and wached a movie on the laptop .
Group meeting went well the day before got some stuff ironed out and now have communication with the truck and ground crew , Bought a radio and base unit !
I feel a bit more secure now I know I can talk with the guys and they know where I am . It's the 27th today . Short morning flight after the rain and wind eased a bit flew into Bollon and landed 10km outside .. getting windy again and up to 20-30km hr cross .
Forcast is looking better now for the following days, group spirts are up , coffee food and out of the mud . Showers and washing and stocking up on supplies , hope to make a run for Cunnamulla this evening if all goes well . wind to the east of us are 25-35km hr ... well have to wait and see . cheers

A little less wind please !

Wind , wind ,wind .... Short flight after the rain stopped in the morning . Flew to Moonie getting strong put down short of town .
Interesting area lots of wet areas only good for grazing ,, lots of roos and cattle . Spent the whole day in Mooonie population about 10 !! Wild pig hunting and fishing area for murray river cod.
Spent the day on the ground because of wind , very limited cell sevice .
Next day looked good flew to about 25km short of St George was making such good time 90km /hr then hit very rough air , how come you cannot seem to fly very far in OZ without hitting crappy air somewhere !!! It's flat here ! and all the same ...
Went into town and picked up Mark at 4pm comming back from Toowoomba, again too much wind for the evening .
Morning flight looked good after the rain ,went to check but it started raining again ,, wait, wait , ok let s try again, short flight into ST george about 30km to gusty and some rain in the way. No ground crew for 1 hr was very pissed off . No communication no, contact ! we have to have a group talk this is not working for me , it's getting more dangerous. cheers

Continuing the push towards the coast ...

Charlesville , then east again , after dropping Mark off I ended up flying untill dark and landing on the road again after 7pm. I was battling a x- wind and only did about 70km this evening , but still every bit counts.
Next morning waking up at 5am and feeing a x-wind is not a good thing, considering it was coming from 90 degree's from the highway track. I attempted 3 launches and their was no way to get it up on line. It took a a quick backtrack down the road , we found a small clearing facing the wind. Very tight spot and no room for messing it up ,as soon as I was 3 feet off the ground I swung it around and followed the highway.
It was super rough and only flew about 45km and put it down too much x wind for me and the thermals started early with cooler air . The evening was great however ,we had a tail wind and put in my longest flight of the trip at 170km in 3 hrs lovely air Landing on the outskirts of Roma
Roma an oil town and felt it home right away and were invited over for some beers on landing with some of the locals and a guy whom ownes the landing area , he invited us to stay at his renovated house and park in the driveway ... Thank you Rick !!
He was a great host and let us use his house for some repairs and cleaning and laundry . Marks motor was taken in and repaired and the truck exhaust was fixed which had a large hole in it .. all done .. let's get on the road it was a day of no flying and my body needed it. .... legs are getting very tired from pushing speed bar all day and shoulder rotator cuff ..
Next day : flew about 110km short of Miles
We ended up in a nice little town had coffee ate some grapes off the vine and had lunch . I was up in the air again by 4:30pm and flying towards Miles about 20km away , this is when idecided to turn south as it was stomy ahead and hitting a headwind keeping the speed at about 20km /hr. The next part of the evening was quite bumpy and had to stay low , not fun flying landed near dark ... very wet area !
Near Gumms...

Today is the 20th Feb ....

Finally a good day yesterday well sort of.. we were on the road ready to fly an the sttarted motor decided to pack it in on the parajet of mine. I quick swap over to new relay and stil nothing , it was decided it was the starter. Well after trying to remove it from another motor it was decided that this is not going to work , so we swaped Mark's motor out and used his, changed it all over, rewired and new carborator and were in the air by 8:30am.
We wasted a nice morning of still air. But, we are now running south with the wind and by 11;30am I was on the gound at 110km waiting for my ground crew. At this point we had to make a turn in the road and I was not sure they would find me, radios have not been working so we have no communication now with grouond crew. I was in the air at about noon and did another 42 km before it got too rough to fly.
we dropped Mark off in Chareville for the bus to go to a meeting in Sydney "Friends of Australia" to try to drum up some awarness and support for out cause and attempt at the world record.
We passed the 2000km mark yesterday, I have been flying for 11 days now so we are keeping on track with time and Km's, did 225km yesterday !

The next 6 days..

He have been trying to make 200km per day , we were behind on km but the 340km day made up for some lost time, a days rest was nice and the next week has been tough. Its a battle each day with flying into a headwind,and rough conditions , boring for the ground crew and slow. The days are hot 35c and usually we are stopping in rest areas or parking lots to sleep near the highway so we dont have to transportth motor far to take off now alway doable so the motor is strapped on top the caravan or the hood of the car and we drive on. People must think we are nuts... a few times we land in town and last week I landed in front of the pub in Kynuna and walked 2 ft for an evening beer , quite the show for the locals. Most of everyone we meet are amased at what we are doing and very friendly, Good ole Aussie's meeting some interesting people and seeing the country stopped at McKinlay's Wallabout Creek Pub home of the crocodile dundee movie ... interesting and funny places . Lots of hug roadtrains traveling the roadsout here and seeing area that have been recently flooded by 2 meter rivers over the road just recently opened for us to travel our timing is lucky !!

Conclurry the wait ...

We arrived in Clocurry on the 13th and on the 14th we rested and waited , the prop arrived but we could not find a TIG welder in town to fix the cage. Another problem wne the prop arrived was the prop was a 2 piece and would not work with Marks motor. The day before we had also but had problems with our reserve bridles burning on the exhaust and wrecking them. I manage to get them fixed here in town ,one problem fixed but seeing that the prop was wrong, it was decided than Mark could not fly further now without waiting here for 2 weeks for a new prop... decision was made for me to fly the next day and continue !
Good morning launched before sunrise on the highway, a quick down wind run before turning and heading into the wind.
With the wind we were nmaking great time and lots of km's I had a 72 km downwind run when I turned into the wind I was slowed down to 24km and slower ahhh... agonising . I had to fly cross wind and low to the ground or I would not make headway so for the next 2-3 days it was 300 ft and lower inching may way along at between 19-40km hr. The bonus was I got to see the animals , 100's of roo's, wild pigs ,emu's wild cats maybe either a dingo or a fox , very intense and tiring flying. One morning I only made 50km and was put down by 8am. The ground crew now has to travel equally as slow boring but ...

where are we ?

Somewhere in the middle of nowhwere is where we are flying ! Along the Overlanders hwy. using it now as a landing and takefoff runway . It is a great landing strip and mostly deserted . Landing in Homestead , Prarie and such place were you might only have 100 people in town or less at times and only 1 store open. Morning are spent flying trying to get in good km before the wind and thermals kick in, usually about 8:30 am. If its good we can refuel and relaunch. On one of these Mark had another bad take off and ended up breaking another prop and breaking his cage. It was then decided for me to fly on and we would phone ahead and get another prop sent out and he could catch up the distance later. A local pilots in Brisbane thought he had a prop which would do, great.. got couriered out right away to Concurry.
Damn, we had just put in a great 158km the envening before and a 100km flight that morning together..and it was looking good for an afternoon flight . I pushed on and ended up putting in a 340km flight this day . We camped at a caravan park in Cloncurry , really a nice place, swimming pool and a nice town , the temp were better and no bugs !! Lets see if the prop comes in tomorrow ?

Eastwards ....

We started the day a bit later as we were campng right beside the take off area . When we land, we also have to think about how we are going to takeoff out of the area or we have to backtrack to a safe take off . Mark had a sketchy launch just mising some tree's and touching one as he left .. whew ! I ended up taking off and lost my GPS off of my flight deck ... Shit !
I was on my way and had to cirle back to land , the guys did not see it fall off. We searched about 5 minutes and decided to relaunch and as Budd was walking over to us.. he found it near the spot I had taken off from .. Thanks Budd... did not want to leave 700.00 sitting in the grass for the locals ... they would have no idea what it was used for !! Off again and some good miles put in, generally flying about 1500-2500ft agl , nice tail cross wind. Mark's motor was running rich and he was not getting as good of fuel economy as I was so I was letting him lead and land were he figured he could get too on his fuel.The evening was light wind again and Mark was having take off problems also we had to figure out his motor , spent the evening tuning his engine fuel mixtures and getting it running right . It was tuned now nd ended up being better than mine on fuel and power. Camping at an old military airport with huge runway !!

Chartersville and westwards ....

Wake up times have changed for me it is now 4:30am ... ahhhh. We had breakfast and broke camp and headed back down the road to the start . Starting was a bit of a problem .. sneaky winds and very calm, Mark decided to launch first as it gave me time to help and figure out slight winds after a few launches we decided to switch sides of the slight hill . After we moved around and set up it was geting on about 7;30 am another launch went bad and mark ended up breaking a prop no injuries ! After a quick run to camp and a new prop we were off again luckly... Mark weaved his way through the trees and circled upwards waiting for me to set up . I joined him and flew past Chartersville staying about 2000tf agl. Landing later around 11:30am outside of a small town . We spent the day waiting for the wind to die down and by 4pm were redy to go , the switching winds and light conditions were not favorble for mark to take off , camped in the cricket grounds after I put on a flying show for the locals ... it was nice evening ! Lots of mosquitos !!

Townsville and the start of the paramotor trip !

We ended up driving for the next 2 days and 1400km.We were parking up along the road and mainly just putting miles in. We were late starting on the this trip, waiting for the paramotors to show up and other odds and ends. I had asked Parajet to have the motors in OZ for the 15 Jan. but I guess 6 months advanced notice is not enough time! We took a few days in Townsville geting the motors and wings set up and tested at an old private airstip outside of town about 30km . Testing was only 1 flight ,it went ok , this was the 1st time we had been on this equipment the Parajet and Dudek wings. Mark ended up having a mishap with his motor the first day when a line wrapped around his wrist and caused him to do a big long turn and hard downwind landing, thankfully nothing broke . We camped at the airport and were forced to run for cover at about 1am , a wicked storm blew in and soaked everything and blew the motors over . We woke up a bit late thinking it would still be blowing but by 7am we were up in the air and flying . Cool clean air and a slight headwind from the south , a but bumpy as we headed towards the ranges when it switched to north but manage a good start to the day about 70km landing east of Chartersville. Mark thought he was out of fuel and decided to land . Good landing and we spent the day in town getting stuff sorted out , missed the evening flight !

Meeting the guys for the flight4life ...

Leaving Towoomba I went out to Cecil plains westwards and spent the night with my buddy Dennis W. Whom I had met on great kepple island 35 years ago , he still looks the same and we had a good time catching up . I did end up seeing him a few times once in NZ skiing and and another time with Mike Pottter in 94 , good to keep in touch with good ole friends ! After I headed to Surfers Paradise and slogged it throught another heavy rain storm but found the place and was soaked ! Now we were all together in one place staying at a relative's of Mark's. We had Greg,Budd,Mark and I . We ended up spending about 10 days here organising buying and putting the gear together , Nissan patrol and older carravan and tons of spare parts it all came together on the last day we loaded up and were northwards towards Townsville yahooo....

Cooryong and upwards ...

Hi , ended up spending about 5 days flying in Cooryong area was quite windy and now have decided to take up hangliding ... sometimes you really need that extra speed crossing valleys. After this I was on my bike again heading north towards Manilla , it took a few days of camping in parks and pull over areas on the sides od rivers , ended up dodging a few rainstorms but also hit few. Manilla was fun great place to hang out and chill and get some x-c in . Managed a 70km flight the first day and a few 80/85 km flights . Met some good friends and even went to the Tamworth country music festival ... it sucked !! But I knew it would !! Anyways I will be back a flying tour is planned soon . Flying infrastrucure at godfrey's is great even has a swimming pool. On the last day I ran 22 km a personal best so far, now I know I can do the Mad mudder race ! I ended up leaving manilla and heading north toward Toowoomba it took about 2 days and hit lots of rain in this area for the next 3 days I was stuck in a caravan park as my Battery went dead on a holiday and had to be replaced. Bummer it was a new bike !

Bright and area ...

I ended up staying in a nice carvan park at the base of My beauty the flying sit ein bright , where most of the vagabound pilots set up camp . Nice place walking distance to the landing area met up with Fred Gungle and Brian Webb and few other locals whom I had know from my visit here 20 years ago with Mike Potter when we were out this way flying ,, how time flys ! A few nice days Xc were had, some runs and beers in the evenings rode my bike up to Mt Buffalfo park , nice ride on the bike without equipment !! I spent a nice time in Bright and after 5 days I was off to Corryong for the Hng gliding nationals and more flying . A nice days ride over the pass to Threadbo ski area and down again , nice to see areas that you have only heard about and some nice off road roads .
Arrived in Corryong and the evening at the caravan park again on the river , another really nice campsite ! Met up with a few locals and enjoyed a B Bque and again beers , Shelly an ex student of mine was competing in the competition this week , I was to be the wind dummy !

Finally a new post .... ! It's only been a year !

Hello from Australia ! I did not know anyone read my posts as I know you have to post regular to get others to read it, Sorry but I dont really have the time to post all the time , my spelling sucks and I type slowly so for me it is painful but will try to catch up now that I am on this new Advanceture and have the day times off.

I arrived on OZ on the 1st January, this being a holiday nothing was open and spent a day in the holtel and aound the area outside of Melbourne. It was nice to be back to OZ but have the prices gone up a cheap holtel was 120.00 night . Not is my budget if i have to spend 4 months here . First few day were spent geting myself used to the 40c heat. This was tough in the city getting around with all my gear , motor cycle , camping and paragliding/paramotor stuff. Besides having to pay at all the airports over weight ,,,, this sucks ! They should weigh the people not the baggage then I could carry more.
I was looking for a used KLR and found a few but it all involved going out and looking at the bikes then getting the paper work done , I thought this to be very expensive and time comsuming , I found a bike store which sold Kawasaki and ended up buying new and putting it on the card within 3 hrs I had my new bike on the road ..... yah baby 11 a new bike 0km on it and was a great color.... RED ~~

Within 3 days I was loaded up and heading to Bright in the snowy mountains, 3 hrs away. A great drive once I found my way out of the city follow the sun east then north . The country side was beautiful the road uncrowed but driving on the other side of the road took some concentration on the bike ... Stay left ! Stay left ! I arrived in Bright in the evening after a nice backroad ride and not much traffic. Time to go flying !!