24/5/10
Woke in the campsite at Neufchateau to a CLASSIC looking sky. Shower, breakfast and a check of the internet showed no sites nearby which take a west (the wind direction that day). We packed and a quick bit of shopping.
Driving out of town we could not help but look at the sky – amazing.... hang on, what’s that? A paraglider! Don’t know where he set off from but he was high and flying up wind (!). Could not believe it when we could identify it as another R10!! Can’t get away from them!
We set off for the French border and a westerly site at a town called Fumey. On route we passed a guy walking with an Advance paragliding bag. He had obviously landed after an XC (cross country) flight. With nowhere to stop on the fast bend where he was walking I carried on. Another 300 meters along and ANOTHER paraglider pilot was standing in a garage forecourt hitching. Now I’m a firm believer in Bob Drury’s ying and yang theory of paragliding – what goes around comes around – so I pulled over and offered a lift. Surprise, surprise he was going back to Fumey! My conscience had me firmly by now, we loaded him and I turned the van round, drove back along the road to the first pilot and picked him up too!
So, van full of hitch hikers off we went. One of the guys said he had been hitching for two hours with no lift! Ouch, been there... not nice. It is a shame people are so scared that they cannot lend a hand – I’m sure they would if their heads were not full of ‘News of the World’ style horror stories. Rutger Hower in ‘The Hitcher’ probably didn’t help the cause much either!
We drove to Fumey and parked the van as close as possible to the take off. One of the hitchers told us to jump in his car and soon we were driving the track up to take off where he gave us a full site briefing and introduced us to the remaining local pilots (see, ying yang!)
It was late by now (we are not good at early starts) and windy. We waited for half an hour to let the wind drop and I was first of the waiting pilots to take off – straight up at 4m/s! ‘So, it’s still working then!’ The wind did not drop off much more and was too strong for Wendy to feel comfortable to launch while I flew a small triangle round the area in strong bumpy conditions.
Good day out and at the right site for the following days predicted weather (west again)
25/05/10
Woke to blue skies with cirrus coming in. We went to take off and sat there all day! The west wind swung north before the sun came over head enough to get the thermals going, then the cirrus shaded everything out. Doh
The evening saw the weather deteriorate and thunder and storms arrived. Oh well, we have done well so far chasing the sun.
26/05/09
We woke to a rainy day - time to move on again. An unsuccessful search for wifi left us with no real idea of where to go so we are heading toward Austria to meet up with the British Team who are competing (or trying to – weather permitting) in the European Championship. Wendy is driving and I am catching up on the blog on tyhe laptop with the aim of updating the blog when we can get on line. Will keep you all updated on the competition when we get there. Germany this evening, just hope the camp site is still open when we get there or it will be a night of wild camping.
Woke in the campsite at Neufchateau to a CLASSIC looking sky. Shower, breakfast and a check of the internet showed no sites nearby which take a west (the wind direction that day). We packed and a quick bit of shopping.
Driving out of town we could not help but look at the sky – amazing.... hang on, what’s that? A paraglider! Don’t know where he set off from but he was high and flying up wind (!). Could not believe it when we could identify it as another R10!! Can’t get away from them!
We set off for the French border and a westerly site at a town called Fumey. On route we passed a guy walking with an Advance paragliding bag. He had obviously landed after an XC (cross country) flight. With nowhere to stop on the fast bend where he was walking I carried on. Another 300 meters along and ANOTHER paraglider pilot was standing in a garage forecourt hitching. Now I’m a firm believer in Bob Drury’s ying and yang theory of paragliding – what goes around comes around – so I pulled over and offered a lift. Surprise, surprise he was going back to Fumey! My conscience had me firmly by now, we loaded him and I turned the van round, drove back along the road to the first pilot and picked him up too!
So, van full of hitch hikers off we went. One of the guys said he had been hitching for two hours with no lift! Ouch, been there... not nice. It is a shame people are so scared that they cannot lend a hand – I’m sure they would if their heads were not full of ‘News of the World’ style horror stories. Rutger Hower in ‘The Hitcher’ probably didn’t help the cause much either!
We drove to Fumey and parked the van as close as possible to the take off. One of the hitchers told us to jump in his car and soon we were driving the track up to take off where he gave us a full site briefing and introduced us to the remaining local pilots (see, ying yang!)
It was late by now (we are not good at early starts) and windy. We waited for half an hour to let the wind drop and I was first of the waiting pilots to take off – straight up at 4m/s! ‘So, it’s still working then!’ The wind did not drop off much more and was too strong for Wendy to feel comfortable to launch while I flew a small triangle round the area in strong bumpy conditions.
Good day out and at the right site for the following days predicted weather (west again)
25/05/10
Woke to blue skies with cirrus coming in. We went to take off and sat there all day! The west wind swung north before the sun came over head enough to get the thermals going, then the cirrus shaded everything out. Doh
The evening saw the weather deteriorate and thunder and storms arrived. Oh well, we have done well so far chasing the sun.
26/05/09
We woke to a rainy day - time to move on again. An unsuccessful search for wifi left us with no real idea of where to go so we are heading toward Austria to meet up with the British Team who are competing (or trying to – weather permitting) in the European Championship. Wendy is driving and I am catching up on the blog on tyhe laptop with the aim of updating the blog when we can get on line. Will keep you all updated on the competition when we get there. Germany this evening, just hope the camp site is still open when we get there or it will be a night of wild camping.
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