DHV XC German Championships Awards

After interesting presentations of weather guru Volker Schwanitz and Hike/Bike/Fly films of paraglider pilot Torsten Hahne, we had the awards, first part - hang gliding. I won the women´s German XC title and a IQ Basic Bräuniger vario :)))

Some more awards for the paragliding XC soon, and maybe it looks flyable tomorrow in the mountains!

DHV annual meeting: some honours for medals

 A very successful year in terms of medals for the DHV - Gold for Tim and silver for his rigid wing team at the worlds, gold for Torsten Siegel at the pg Euros, Bronze medal for my friend Yvonne Dathe at the paragliding Euros and for me at the women´s worlds in Annecy!
Also Ecki, our team doctor, proudly showed us that he is back in the hang gliding scene after years of paragliding, not sure if Ingrid his wife is really happy that he can now take off and land in front of their house ;)
Will be a nice party tonight at Rottach-Egern in southern Bavaria at Tegernsee.

Photo shooting with Red Bull in Fuschl

Not exactly flying weather unfortunately yesterday, but we made the best of the conditions given. I had fun working with photographers Dale Tidy and Leo Rosas - I very much enjoyed the English/Spanish model lessons from the Australian and Venezuelan photographers, so nice that Leo accompanied us with "behind the scenes"-shots all day, which you see here on his photos.
This weekend I will join the annual meeting of DHV for some awards for the worlds and German XC championships. Always great to meet our team again, and to see many other friends I haven´t met for a while.

Missing the Australian critters

I´m thankful that My Australian friends showed great patience with me. When ever I jumped around, screaming "CUUUUTE!", they knew it was time for a wild life photo ;) I miss all those Australian critters, it´s so cool to have breakfast with the Kookaburras and Cockatoos!

Orlando, Timezone GMT -5

I went for some heavy duty trail running today in Orlando, my training program to get fit for the worlds in Mexico. Half way through it started pouring down in good old Florida thunderstorm manner, and I was soaked in seconds ;) Luckily the temperature was a pleasant 27 C, so the shower was kind of welcome... Anything is better than grey cold winter in Germany! And guess what I´m going back to now :(

60 year anniversary celebration of Wunschel

Last night I joined a gala for the 60th anniversary of the Wunschel company in Röslau, Bavaria. I felt privileged that Dieter Wunschel personally invited me to celebrate this great event, and so I could just squeeze it in between coming back from Sydney and heading on to Orlando today. It was great to personally meet the guys who have been looking after the perfect Red Bull paint design on my helmets for the past 15 years! Can´t thank them enough! I had a great time at the event, but with jetlag on my shoulders, i was happy that many large fridges were filled with Red Bull up to the top ;)
Now off to sunny Florida again!

In Munich: Abenteuer Deutschland

Briefly met photographer and good friend Florian Wagner today at a cinema in Munich where he did a great job on presenting  photos and videos of his tour through Germany on horses, 1700 km! It is a Globetrotter outdoor event in the CineMax Isartor with lots of great presentations of different outdoor athletes and photographers, and I was glad I could just squeeze it in between packing my suitcase again and heading off :)
Have a look at Florian´s book here! He rode up on horses and flew back down to Bavaria in a helicopter, capturing the whole route again from a different perspective - and because it was just a great excuse to fly :)

One last flight in summer: "Palmy" Palm Beach!

After I didn´t manage to fly yesterday and the prediction for today was really good, I decided to stay a day longer. Olli picked me up and took me to Ian Duncan´s shop where all the Moyes carbon parts are manufactured. It was great catching up with Ian, meanwhile Rohan managed to get hold of Mick who took us up to the Palm Beach take off. Only if you are invited and instructed by a club member, you are eligible to launch here, because it is just in somebody´s back yard, and any problems would close down the site immediately.
Alan Taylor, the local pilot, looked after Olli and me. I was glad that I had them on my side wires, because take off wasn´t easy. With them leading my wing out, it was very smooth though. Once off the cliff, the air felt silky smooth. A flight meditation! I enjoyed the beautiful views of Palm Beach and Pittwater just behind it. Together with Olli I cruised along some other take offs further south, and after a wonderful, uplifting 3 hours in the air, we landed on Narrabeen beach with a happy smile in our face. What a day!
We had barely started packing up when Mick already pulled in to pick us up and take us back to the car! How lucky can we get? Big thanks to the wonderful guys who looked after us so well, generously sharing their private flying site with us and just making our day!
After dropping the gliders at the Moyes factory and saying good-bye to Vicki, Im now finally on my way home to winter, already dreaming of the next time in Australia.

Cruisy Sydney day

Before 6am, I started driving over to Bronte to meet Bill Moyes for a swim and a coffee. I had a groovy little car for the trip, the first time ever in Australia that I didn´t confuse wiper and indicator, because it was a German car. Unfortunately there was a lot of traffic on the road, so I could not drive the car at the speed it deserves ;) still I had a fat grin in my face, as it was just big fun to cruise up and see Bill´s smile after he looked twice into the car.
I also caught Olli for breakfast and then went over to the Moyes factory. They are still in Botany, but will soon move further south, closer to Stanwell. Everything is already in boxes. It was great catching up with Vicki, Jenny and Matt, then go on to Red Bull headquarter to organize some trays for my good bye party.
Next stop was in Oxford St where I met hat designer Maya Neumann. I love her hats made from waterlilly root, very durable and flexible. It was great catching up with her and get a new hat for my next flying adventures!

The original plan had been flying at Palm Beach, but the wind didn´t work out, and it also started raining. Who cares, Olli and Rohan flew the Malibus anyway at Newport.
We cooked some dinner at Rohan´s place, it was great to spend some time with him and Olli before going home to the other hemisphere!
Im still stoked about the wildlife in the garden - the water dragons are nice, but yesterday I also saw a blue tongue lizard! This morning a flock of about 20 cockatoos came around to say good-bye to me, also two kookaburras stopped by :)
Meanwhile the towing competition in Wellington (there is one in Australia too!) had another task yesterday.
Lots of greetings from the warmer side of the world - wish I could make it back for Forbes!

Dune gooning

This morning, the big white cheeky birds came back for a quick breakfast. The wind was southeast, and Craig took me flying to the Longr
eef dunes. After I had a great introduction of ground handling in strong gusty winds at the Boneyards last year by Nils, I finally go to do my first real dune gooning flights today.
It felt great to hover like a seagull above the sand, wearing that silly grin you get when you are allowed to just play and fly and enjoy a perfect day!

In the evening, we met RT and Anton Brown with family - since the Red Bull giants of Rio, I had not met Anton who is originally from South Africa. It was great to catch up, enjoy dinner with good friends and the best views you can wish for. But the absolute highlight - mango and blueberries for dessert, I absolutely pigged out on that ;) Who ever had Australian mangoes will forgive me this not exactly Knigge-like behaviour...
Tomorrow I hope to meet up with Olli at some stage before I soon have to go back north to winter.

Awesome day in Sydney

Where should I start? Many first of´s today for me - the cockatoos visited us for breakfast on the balcony, and I handfed them for the first time. They are such cheeky, funny creatures, it was a lot of fun to watch them, they are so playful!
Then I tried stand up paddling for the first time, and I almost got to the other shore dry... got too scared when some break came up and fell over and in ;) but it was a lot of fun anyway. Good arm training for flying! I just have to stop staring at the water I guess.
A nice flight in the afternoon, boating around in a Malibu at the Sydney´s northern beaches for the first time. It almost felt like meditation to soar the smooth, crispy clear sea breeze!
I always thought Im an eastern suburbs girl, but I must admit that there is some amazing beauty north of the bridge too ;)

Where is Christchurch?

When I arrived at Tascha´s place north of Christchurch, about 80km/h gusts greeted me, with temperatures down to 3 C at night. But it was great to catch up with some of my best friends in the world, who unfortunately just live too far away! It was really nice to see Cris and Tali too.
I also took a drive to Christchurch, but didn´t recognize anything at all. About 8000 buildings had been taken down since the earthquake. The container shopping area is actually quite cool, following a design idea from London.
When I arrived in Auckland, I was pleased to find some warmer temperatures up here today though ;)