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A stroll by the sea – here be dragons!

Posted on February 4, 2016 by John

Our fishing day ended in Epping, at the home of Viv and Chris. They had invited Martin, Fiona and me over for dinner.

We had a splendid meal and a lovely time eating outside on the balmy evening. Martin and Fiona were keen to see Vivienne’s jewellery creations and her well-appointed workshops.

The next day was another lovely Sydney sunny day – not too hot. Martin, Fiona and I took the rivercat ferry from Meadowbank to Circular Quay and then hopped on the Manly ferry for a trip to the famous beach. The journey on the ferry was splendid with the sun glinting on the pristine harbour. The ferry was full of tourists.

Manly beach was busy for a weekday. We didn’t go to swim, we just took in the ambience, watched the surfers and swimmers and had a stroll. We walked along the path to nearby Shelly beach, stopping to take some photos of a lovely water dragon. Someone had left it some tiny cubes of fruit so it stayed still for people to take pictures.

There were groups of people on the beach donning scuba gear . The area is a protected marine park famous for its big groupers and weedy sea dragons. I talked to one returning diver who told me he’d seen a big whaler shark out there!

We walked back to Manly for some lunch, then took the return ferry. We sat outside on the front of the ferry with wonderful views of the yachts racing on the harbour, then the Opera House and the bridge. It’s hard to beat the sights of Sydney harbour on a sunny day.

Then I drove Martin and Fiona to the airport for their journey to Perth. Bye!

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Fishing with friends (and catching!)

Posted on February 2, 2016 by John

Old schoolfriend Martin Rowell and his wife Fiona are visiting from England. Their daughter Catriona, lives in Perth with her husband and two children, so they’ve added a visit to Sydney on to their trip to Perth.

At Martin’s request, today we rented a little boat and went fishing on Pittwater. Fabulous weather – 26 degrees and sunny. We caught lots of fish, all just too small to keep and eat. Martin had a big flathead on the hook (60cm!) but as we tried to get in into the boat it bit through the line and escaped. Bugger! The one that got away.

Then Fiona caught another big fish – a leatherjacket, but that leapt off the hook as she tried to get it into the boat. My one big fish also escaped – I have no idea what it was, but it was ugly and seemed to have lots of warty bits on its head!

We did land lots of smaller bream. So I caught eight fish, Fiona had four and Martin had four (including the ones that got away!)

We had a nice ride back home through Palm Beach, enjoying the lovely views of the ocean and the incredibly expensive houses.

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I fly 1600 kilometres in a glider

Posted on January 20, 2016 by John

Yes, 1600k is a long way to fly. But that was over four flights, not one. I spent nine days this month at the NSW country town of Cootamundra where my gliding club was holding its annual camp. We had good cross-country gliding weather with thermals up past 12,000 feet on some days.

I had four great cross-country flights of 420k, 444k, 346k and 400k. All very well, but I needed to fly 500 kilometres to get a Diamond Distance Badge – Bugger! Flying the 500k is more difficult than I realised. You have to fly efficiently to get around the task before the thermals die out at the end of the day. It can take seven hours of concentration to complete 500k and I was finding that my brain was giving up after about five hours. Maybe I’m just too old now!

5,800 feet leaving Narrandera on track to Gundagai in the DG303

The good thermal days are when it is really hot on the ground. It was up to 42 degrees one day which made it very fatiguing getting the glider ready for launch. Height was a blessing as the outside temp dropped to 10 degrees.

The club had four single-seat gliders and one two-seater to share between eight pilots. We also had up to five guys with their own private gliders. It was a lot of fun.

When the lift runs out you have to land in a farmer’s field. Luckily the west of NSW has lots of flat fields with the crops gathered in at this time of year. I made it back home on each of my flights but there were several outlandings. I helped with a couple.

The drill is to drive the glider’s trailer into the field then take the glider apart and slot it into the trailer. It can be done quickly (45 minutes) with a good crew. Of course you then have to put it back together at the airfield!

Several of the pilots managed badge flights of 300k and 500k.

I put my flights up on a website – the On Line Contest . This allows you to compare your performance with other pilots from around the world. You can see my flights here – click on Info for a map. For a time, one of my flights was the best in the world! That was mainly because in NSW our gliding day finishes before the rest of the country and before the other southern hemisphere gliding spot such as Southern Africa. I was soon overtaken, but it was good while it lasted.

Now I’m back home I’ll have to knuckle down and produce another Journal for the gliding club. There should be plenty of material from the camp but I have to persuade the pilots to write about their experiences.

At the camp I flew a few of the local people on air experience flights in the two-seater. That was interesting work and free flying for me!

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A quiet new year

Posted on January 20, 2016 by John

New Year’s eve was a quiet one for me – Jan had gone to England to look after her mother. Muriel, 91, had fallen and broken her wrist just after Christmas day. Jan flew over to help. Muriel had to have pins in her right wrist and a heavy plaster.

Jan’s still there helping Muriel with day-to-day tasks and watching the snow and frost out of the window! It’s not all chores – friends are visiting and Jan and Muriel are managing to go out to the cinema and theatre.

I’m busy looking after Sooty the cat who is not happy being reduced to just one servant.

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Christmas in a new home

Posted on January 20, 2016 by John

We spent Christmas day 2015 in Eunice Markham’s new apartment in Rozelle with Viv, Chris and Jack. We had a lovely dinner on the balcony with great views of Sydney Harbour. Of course we pulled crackers and wore silly paper hats. Santa was kind to everyone – we’d been good boys and girls.