Day 2: Now we're on holiday!

After sleeping like logs, day2 didn't look so good. Low cloud, drizzle etc. But after a good breakfast we hooked up with Dave, all piled into two vehicles and headed inland to the dividing range. We were heading for a Skiing site called Mt Cheeseman which might afford some good flying. The weather system stable, so not expecting anything epic, but...

An hour or so later we ascended into the mountains and cloud, and then miraculously it all cleared to blue skies (cloud filled valleys around us). Great scenery (look up Castle Hill somewhere). We left one camper van at the LZ and took the 4x4 up the gravel track to the Ski base about 700m further up. Here we set up for forward launches as cycles were light. Dave gave us a quick site briefing and then we all went off like the proverbial lemmings. Carolyn went first and we watched as she headed out and found a goodish thermal and started winding it up (not that high - base was barely above us). We all had a good play in the thermals, trying to head out into the valley, though we steadily got lower and lower. I spent a while playing in bubbles of lift abover the LZ but was soon down to land at the van. A nice 1/2 hr of lee-side bubble flying!

We spent a while getting everyone together - Carolyn had gone the furthest having picked another junction and van to land next to (oops!) - but we were soon all back up for another flight down. Now we set a mini-task to see who could get the furthest down the track out into the valley - not easy as into a valley wind and with a decaying day. We all pretty much made the same LZ. Carolyn agian made a small hill in front of the LZ and even climbed a bit before landing with the rest of us - a couple of us had got sunk out trying to make the same hill. In fact I'd been drilled down in a 20km head wind for a 10min top to bottom. But still, a great place to fly, and a good day's flying, especially given how the weather had looked. Finished off heading back to Sumner, pizza and beer & wine.