Flight

Trying to remember some of Carlo and Greg's advice so despite bombing out twice after only 20 minutes of soaring without finding a good enough thermal (whilst everyone else seemed to be going up!) kept at it, and finally managed to hook into a decent climb near the lower take off site (I'd been trying further up the ridge previously but you can only ignore other gliders going up for so long). Once my climb took me past 3000' I drifted over the back and headed vaguely SW. Before long I was over Abergavenny and then it slowly dawned that the hill beyond was facing into wind so I headed for that. Turned out it was the Blorenge and whilst I arrived on its lower slopes I was soon swept up to the ridge. After spending 10 mins trying to climb above the launch spot I gave up and pushed out towards a nice green field only to hit a thermal instantly which took me back over 2500'. With this I tossed a mental coin and headed off to the left along the ridge where I found a little lift but eventually bombed out in a valley a few km's from Llanover. Turns out I should have gone right - next time really need a better plan but otherwise pleased to have doubled my previous best XC distance! Certainly a Good Friday!