More fish, birds Etc

Posted on October 14, 2015 by John

Heron Island is an amazing place. A two-hour fast boat ride from Gladstone in Queensland it is surrounded by reef and populated by thousands of birds. Noddy terns rest and nest in every tree and zip about just by your head. Banded Rails pick through the leaf litter looking for insects to eat. White egrets pace about.

Heron beach

Heron beach

There are fish galore even when just snorkelling off the beach. We’ve seen rays, reef sharks, fish of many colours, fish digging holes in the sand with their fins, fish popping their heads up and down out of coral holes, fish biting lumps off coral and lots and lots of sea cucumbers.

More diving for me today, but just one dive. The keen divers do three a day.

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On the reef

Posted on October 13, 2015 by John

We are on Heron Island – sand, sea, reef and birds, lots of birds!

Scuba diving today – great . Short post because internet access slow and limited. No phone coverage, no TV -it’s all nature out here. Saw lots of fish, some little sharks and a huge manta ray. Smashing!

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It’s an ill wind . . .

Posted on September 26, 2015 by John

Wednesday was a washout – windy, low cloud, showers and cold. Sigh! The forecast for the rest of the week was not good so we decided to call it a day. We packed the glider into the trailer in between the showers. Julian headed back to Sydney towing the trailer.

I went back to Cooma and spent some time at the Snowy Hydro Discovery Centre. This “state-of-the-art visitor facility showcases the amazing story of the Snowy Mountains Scheme from the early construction days, to the role the Scheme plays today in the continuing development and growth of Australia.”

For those who don’t know, the scheme is an amazing complex of reservoirs, power stations and tunnels started in the 1950s.

“The Scheme collects and stores the water that would normally flow east to the coast and diverts it through trans-mountain tunnels and power stations. The water is then released into the Murray and Murrumbidgee Rivers for irrigation.” The Discovery Centre has some great old photos and film of the project construction. Thousands of men came from post-war Europe and lived in camps in the mountains while they worked on the scheme.

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Low cloud over Bunyan.

I stayed the night in Cooma and joined some of the other pilots for bangers and mash at the Alpine Hotel, yummy! I headed back to Sydney on Thursday, stopping off at Camden Airport to take the glider from its trailer, rig it, and tuck it away safely in the hangar.

So, a couple of pleasant flights, but no wave. I’ll have to try again next year!

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The weather factory

Posted on September 22, 2015 by John

A cold southerly wind was blowing at Bunyan today. Early reports were saying that there might be some wave later in the day. I got the glider ready early, checked the oxygen, water supply, muesli bars, GPS, GoPro, outlanding kit.

The weather report at morning briefing was not so optimistic. Wave unlikely. Strong winds, some low clouds and showers. Changing through the day. The local pilots call Bunyan The Weather Factory and it is living up to its reputation. I was keen to fly, so hoped for the cloud to lift and the strong winds to ease a bit. A few of us hung around with gliders at the ready. We gave up about 2pm with no hope of weather improvement.

There’s always tomorrow. (Temp forecast zero degrees.) Dinner at the RSL – big steak, very good.

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Chasing the wave

Posted on September 21, 2015 by John

I’ve come to Bunyan in the Snowy Mountains for a week of gliding fun.

Bunyan is the home of Canberra Gliding Club and is famous for the Wave. The Wave is a standing wave created in the atmosphere when a high wind blows over the Snowy Mountains. The wave is like ripples found in a river downstream of a big rock. If you find the right bit of the ripple in your glider – the bit that’s going up – you can soar aloft to the cruising height of a 747.

Here we hope to climb to about 24,000 feet. That’s enough to get an internationally-recognised gliding achievement – a height Diamond. There are some dangers to high flight. We need to breathe oxygen and be prepared to descend quickly if the oxygen system fails. It gets cold up there as well, minus 30C.

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I’m sharing a Camden Club glider – DG303 – with one other Camden member, Julian. I towed the glider in its trailer down to Bunyan (5 hours) on Friday and rigged it on Saturday. I had a lovely two-hour flight on Saturday in thermal lift and another 45 minutes on Sunday climbing to 7,000 feet.

The wave made an appearance today, but only a baby wave. Julian soared to 11,000 feet and one guy went up to 13,000 feet, but the wave didn’t last long.

It’s my turn in the glider tomorrow, but the forecast isn’t good – showers and possibly snow! Still, forecasts are not always right, so I have to be ready to take off in case there are good flying conditions.

Lots of people are at the gliding club for the week and the atmosphere is good. A big campfire has been built near the clubhouse to keep us warm while we drink beer under the stars. The fire has also cooked damper in camp ovens and provided the coals to line the pit to cook meat for a hangi.

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