March 23rd ....

We ended the last flight after 20 km and that's where we camped on a pullout on the side of the hwy . Not a nice place but no here else to go. The day was spent reading and exploring the area , hiking . The 24th is supposed to be nice with a high pressure system setting up. Light winds ...up early ,set up on the hwy. and we were off , I could see Fog in the distance !! Managed to fly about 10 km and we hit fog. I tried to climb up and over but I could not see the ground ,not good if I have to land quickly . It actually got very thick , lots of moisture and it was hard to see . I asked the guys to go ahead and look for towers and powerlines as I had to stay low to see the hwy and doing 40km /hr would give me seconds to avoid anything . This went on for about 1 hrs and then it got windy had to land to warm up an dry out , I was soaked and shivering ..warmed up 1/2 hr later back in the air . More fog passing the town of Kyancuna, waiting for the bend in the road for a better tailwind, up to now it was a south cross wind and slow progress. Nice farming area , real large farms and looks like wheat or similar staying low for the past 2 hrs . I could see showers starting to the south and low level wave starting had to keep flying and get ahead of it , the road was curving in my favor now and running at 65km/hr. Landed for some gas after 3hrs and when we went back we to start could not get the engine going again . Swap engines over took about 1 hr ... tick toc, tick toc ....as usual wasting valuable flying weather and wind . Launched again and flew for about another hr landing near Poochera in crazy thermals and wind . Ended up going into town for beer at the pub , I get to have Coke !! Launched again about 5pm in strong wind but tail wind , landed near 7pm past Wirrula , Looks like the sea breeze kicked in and i had 0 ground stopped me dead and real nasty air. Total for the day 250km , slow start,fog,rain, wind and heat...all in 8 hrs . Food and sleep ...