Repairing rat damage on my harness or How good is tape?

Arriving in Coolangatta, it was a very warm welcome by my friend Sue. She and I waited for Niki Longshore to arrive. In the morning, she had missed the check-in time of her flight (45 minutes before take off) just by two minutes (turning off to the domestic terminal, we got stuck in bad traffic), and Tiger Air just would not let her on. They asked for more money and put her on a flight four hours later.
Sue took us to Canungra, where Niki is staying with Rory and his team, while I´m staying in Glen´s and Nadine´s beautiful 'tree house'.

As a naive European living in a city, I didn´t realize that rats even get into houses in Sydney to find food. When I left my harness with Craig, I had put some dried organic foods into the harness cause I knew I wouldn´t have a car when coming back to go around and find things before heading up for Canungra. Mistake!
The rats ate their way through my harness bag and ate all foods. Thankfully Craig cleaned it up before RT brought my harness over yesterday! Luckily I didn´t leave a fruit bar in any of the harness bags, like Gabor did - they went right through his harness too, Billy repaired it this morning. Funny how we both had the same trouble!!! Now how do you quickly repair a big whole like that? I just say: How good is tape?!! Patched on from both sides, it seems to be quite strong. Hopefully strong enoug before I get to Woody Valley to have my harness checked and the damage repaired.
Today it´s quite a northerly wind in Canungra, and neither Tambo nor Beechmont take off really cater for that direction. I am happy to take a day off to get everything prepared and set up for the start of the Canungra Classic tomorrow!

A perfect day at Stanwell Park

It´s not common to have such clear skies and sunshine in southeasters in Australia. But when Gecko Girl Niki Longshore and I went ot Stanwell Park yesterday, we were really lucky to find the smoothest breeze for soaring and the clearest air you could wish for. Whales were swimming along the coast through the bright blue water, what more could you ask for?
My new RX3 racing machine prooved to have a really nice handling, even with full VG on! I was happy to have such a toy to fly for the comp in Canungra, starting on Saturday!
I have to pack my gear now, cause Niki and I are flying up to the Gold Coast in a few hours, settling in for the Canungra Classic!

Preparing for the Canungra Classis Comp

Really nice to have more girls to fly the Canungra Classic comp this year! Vicki and I picked up Niki Longshore from the US yesterday at Sydney airport, and it looks like Stanwell will turn on in a few hours, so we can both go and testfly our gliders :)
It will be a great competition this year, because the Australian pilots are all very motivated to get on their national team for Brasilia, and the Classic counts as a qualifying competition.
I will be flying with my great team from last year - Nils Vesk, Pete Burkitt, Rohan Taylor and Craig Taylor, and with Alan, the best driver in the world!
Niki and I will fly up to the Gold Coast tomorrow morning, and Sue Phillips already offered to pick us up, so it will be girls´ power up in Queensland soon!
At the moment, my glider is being finished at the Moyes factory, so exciting to see that beautiful new all carbon machine! Can´t wait to fly it :)

FlyRanch Buenos Aires, Timezone UTC -3

Very often people ask me what I do during the short stays of my work layovers, and if it is enough time to recover. On my flight to Buenos Aires I got lucky - it was the perfect spring time weather! Blossoms everywhere, light wind, and sunny. Lionel picked us up in the city and took us an hour south towards La Plata, to the FlyRanch.
On my arrival day, I was too tired to fly by myself, so I was happy that Lionel and David offered me tandem flights! What a perfect day, feeling the smooth, clean air above the Argentinian pampas on my skin, enjoying the best view one can have! It was almost a meditation, charging up my batteries.
Flavio was busy fixing, repairing, and helping with instruction and tandems. He must be proud of this fantastic flying paradise that he has been running for so many years now! It´s been great to meet old friends, make new friends, share the mate tea, and hang out in the evening.
The next day we went out again, and I could try out Damian´s harness and glider, a Sting, while David was buzzing around me in a Fun. The Sting was trimmed really fast, so it turned into an interesting tow - good work out for my arms ;)
In the evening, Reinaldo invited us over to his beautiful house next to the FlyRanch.
The next day only left time for a short healthy lunch and for shopping some mate tea before heading home. 13 to 14 hours of flight time and a bit more work time is quite a lot, but that flight always makes me happy cause I get to see my friends, and sometimes I can even fly, while there was already the first snow back home in the Bavarian alps!
Thanks so much for a wonderful time in Argentina, my friends! It was only two and a half days, but it filled my heart with memories worth a few weeks! I can´t wait to get back to fly with you guys :)

FlyRanch Buenos Aires, Timezone UTC -3

Very often people ask me what I do during the short stays of my work layovers, and if it is enough time to recover. On my flight to Buenos Aires I got lucky - it was the perfect spring time weather! Blossoms everywhere, light wind, and sunny. Lionel picked us up in the city and took us an hour south towards La Plata, to the FlyRanch.
On my arrival day, I was too tired to fly by myself, so I was happy that Lionel and David offered me tandem flights! What a perfect day, feeling the smooth, clean air above the Argentinian pampas on my skin, enjoying the best view one can have! It was almost a meditation, charging up my batteries.
Flavio was busy fixing, repairing, and helping with instruction and tandems. He must be proud of this fantastic flying paradise that he has been running for so many years now! It´s been great to meet old friends, make new friends, share the mate tea, and hang out in the evening.
The next day we went out again, and I could try out Damian´s harness and glider, a Sting, while David was buzzing around me in a Fun. The Sting was trimmed really fast, so it turned into an interesting tow - good work out for my arms ;)
In the evening, Reinaldo invited us over to his beautiful house next to the FlyRanch.
The next day only left time for a short healthy lunch and for shopping some mate tea before heading home. 13 to 14 hours of flight time and a bit more work time is quite a lot, but that flight always makes me happy cause I get to see my friends, and sometimes I can even fly, while there was already the first snow back home in the Bavarian alps!
Thanks so much for a wonderful time in Argentina, my friends! It was only two and a half days, but it filled my heart with memories worth a few weeks! I can´t wait to get back to fly with you guys :)

New World Records in Brazil!

I was very happy to hear that my friends Glauco Pinto and Andre Wolf both flew a new declared to goal distance world record after a foot launch in Tacima. They´ve beaten Jonny Durands record of 557km by about 50km, which is huge!!! Some paragliders were on course as well, guess they also might have beaten some records. For the hang gliders, Andre and Glauco set the record up to 607km declared goal from a mountain take off!
I talked to the guys in the evening and congratulated them on their big flight. They were staying in the next village over night, celebrating, as the retrieve in Brazil can take a while longer than on a German Autobahn ;) What a great adventure!

Buenos dias, Argentina!!!

The last weeks were full of flights, Bangalore - Tunis - Boston - Tampa, my Dad´s birthday, my mother´s birthday, Oktoberfest with my Kiwi friends - in short, not much time at all inbetween.
In the meantime, winter started in Germany. After a beautiful late summer September with some sweet flights at Rauschberg, finally it got cold and even snowed in the mountains. Time to go south, like all those geese I keep seeing every day, flying in formation.
Buenos Aires promises some sun tomorrow, and my friends from FlyRanch are already alert. I love the country, and it will be great to see some of the guys again who were in Brasilia.
Oh, and I arrive on a Sunday, so the market in San Telmo is on, with music and Tango in the streets and all. Great atmosphere!