| Flight details: | The OnTour group arrived at Milk to a blue sky. However, by the time we had emptied the bus at the top and I had driven down to park, the sky was starting to look pretty good.
Following the local's lead, a few of us dithered at Milk and Vincent did a couple of ploofs, before we finally decided to walk over to White Horse on the basis that the sky looked better there. At this juncture nobody had popped above the ridge line.
As Vincent and I arrived at White Horse, we were surprised to see Carlo, who hooked a very snotty climb off the slope to be the first to base. He lurked thereabouts for quite a while before returning to launch on foot, a few moments after first Wagga and then Chris Craven, Nancy and some of the 303 guys had climbed away.
For two hours, we then trudged up the hill and lobbed off into hopeful looking thermals, only to land at the bottom at start the cycle again. The military had contrived to set most of their bit of the down alight and the smoke was settling in front of launch, presumably to the detriment of our thermals. They were also not being helped by a gradually thickening cirrus layer.
I was sat at the top of the hill trying to sort out the retrieve for Chris who had landed about ten km away when Andy Wade contacted what appeared to be the best thermal of the day. Several pilots got up in that, including Carlo for his second XC flight of the day, but by the time I had finished sorting retrieves, telling everyone else to get into it and got myself back into flying order the best of it had gone and I had yet another walk back up. Andy himself ended up deep in the rape, though his glider was just about on the path.
It was about this time that we encountered a dust(less) devil, which dragged a couple of pilots and tied up a few wings.
My break came just after I got to the top after yet another ploof when I spotted a couple of swifts milling about over the rape field below, by the time I had launched they had multiplied into a |
