Interlaken

Swiss Nic met me at Zurich airport and we shot down for a beautiful fly at Interlaken
Glider still in Frankfurt so I floated around on a Falcon.

The Eiger, Monch and Jungfrau off in the background.

Europe 2011 - Getting there

Here we go again. Packing a couple of weeks ago. Jocks, socks, electronics and somewhere in there is a hang glider.

Off to the Swiss Open in Fiesch and then on to the Worlds in Monte Cucco, Italy.

Unfortunately some lazy bastard let the glider sit in Sydney for a week and I will end up beating it to Zurich.

Right now I'm sitting in Singers at midnight waiting on a 1:30 am flight. Great Airport but Australia really is a long way from anywhere. Looking forward to meeting up with Swiss Nic in the morning, 14 hours from now, and hopefully flying Interlaken Monday.

The Europeans

Not getting much time to blog and the old laptop is failing.

Great  apartment

Ager practice

Had 4 good days practice flying the Spanish Nationals tasks. Stable and technical a couple of days. rough the 3rd then a strong smooth day.
Taking a rest today while the opening ceremony is on. Had sprogs measured this morning, OK. looking forward to the Holland / Spain final tonight!

Jamie helping Nick and in goal. I was able to jump in Nick's car with Carl and Jamie. Carl came 3rd in the Spanish Nats.

Heading into the mountains.

Jumped in with James Stinnert and Larry for the comp. Sue, Lyn and Ally will be able to share the driving.

Alex shops till I drop and on to Ager

Adelaide - Melbourne -Singapore - London - Barcelona was a long haul and left us pretty shattered. To our suprise our luggage turned up and the taxi found our accommodation. We used airbnb.com to find a couple who share their appartment only 400m from Sagrada familia and a couple of Metro stops from the centre of town. With recommendations online it works out OK.
To beat jetlag, and because we are about to spend two weeks in the backwoods of the spanish coutryside,  I had promised to spend a couple of days shopping with Ally. She was in heaven scoring an excess baggage full of bargains.

we plan to take this back to Aus (won't have to frieght glider)

Sagrada Familia

Ali in the Happy Pills shop

A local girl, Mons, who has driven for pilots in Australia, offered to help get my glider from the airport and arranged a lift up to Ager with Salvador the Euros organiser. They were both incredibly generous with their time. The beaurocratic process of clearing the glider lived up to its reputation. Everyone I dealt with had to copy my passport, and just when I thought we were in the clear customs decided they wanted to open the glider box. Problem was the freight company could not find the glider. How do you lose a 4m box? Eventually with workers scouring the warehouse it turned up, customs accepted I was not smuggling anything and Salvador showed Alex what a brand new C5 Citroen will do with a glider on the roof.

It turns out Salvador's daughters Anna and Maria are helping with the organisation and Ally has been roped in to help aswell.

It is always a relief to get the glider unboxed, rebuilt and rigged in one piece. Seeing a forklift pick up a box with all that carbon in it is an anxious moment.

Thanks to our sponsors

I have collected signatures on special edition envelopes printed for the worlds at Laragne as a thank you for those who donated to the team fund.

Who can you pick?

Ager day 5 - a great racing day to the big ridge.

Another great racing day. Jonny's video is about the best report on the day you can get.

Aeros tail next to my base bar at setup.

I was with the lead gaggle all day and even led out for awhile but went for an extra top up with Carl before the final glide. I got in the same time as Blay but lost 5 min on those that took a gamble over the forest before goal and got away with it. Balazs and Jonny did well taking the late start and caught the lead gaggle when we put the brakes on as it overclouded at one point.

Leading out on the awesome ridge leading to the turn point. You could smell the yellow flowers in the thermals.
An agressive flare was needed in the leeside landing area.



The official landing was dodgy but most succumed to wanting to land together. Most of us got away with it OK.

The second last day is blown out so it is a time for doing deals. swimming and catching up on sleep after some epic retrieves yesterday. It is gusting 35kts outside as I write this.