Flygirl contact details:

Whilst in Australia, my number is : +61 429 809 895

Skype : gaynor_flygirl

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SPOT tracking link set to show flights only for 7 days.

I cannot access any messages on my South African cell number as it does not operate here in the rurals. Please use the Australian cell.

Byron Bay. Arrived yesterday after a scenic drive through the Great Dividing Range with Graham from the UK.

Accommodation is expensive in this part of the world, but I found a spot two minutes walk from the longest beach I have seen in years.  The BnB is called The Cape Beach House in Byron Cove and has a serene, relaxing summer atmosphere. The website does not do it justice. 

This 100 year old timber frame home was renovated in modern beach house decor and almost everything is a clean white. I am enjoying an enormous bedroom with high ceilings, air conditioning, white walls, dark wooden floors, a modern shower and bathroom, TV, realplunger coffee facilities, a great big double bed with white sheets and an island style breakfast area overlooking a small swimming pool with palm fronds framing the house.  It even has a sauna and steam room!

I negotiated a lower rate - 125 AUS per night including a breakfast of real coffee, yogurts, honey, fresh fruit, a choice of breads and toast, home made muesli and cereals.  This is expensive for a South African, but considering the options in the area, it is very good value and with only 4 days here, I am treating myself :-)

What I love most of all about this home is the lovely welcoming atmosphere and its proximity to the beach.  The sea is refreshing without being cold and the sand squeaks as I walk on it.  Surprisingly the beach is almost deserted in this area - bonus!  In just a few hours I managed to burn away my paraglider/farmers tan :-(  Hope I don't peel!!! 

Oh, and someone might have mentioned that the further north I walk, the more likely I am going to encounter naked men.  Fortunately this appears to be quite a healthy predominantly male nudist beach with everyone minding their own business and enjoying the nature thing.  Ding-a-lings and ding-a-dongs .... :-)

Night time - almost over... my neighbours across the road screaming and shouting.  Scandinavians i think.  Went to investigate.  A girlfriend was hysterical, her boyfriend had fallen over and planted his face into the concrete floor after a reaction to some drug taking.  Felt his pulse and waited for him to come right and sit up and then I left.  Young people experimenting on holiday... 

Drugs and alcohol are freely and widely in use here in this beautiful, safe and amiable country ... Australia. 

Today I took myself for a walk to town to investigate options for my return travel to Manilla.  It is going to take two days as there is no direct way of getting to Tamworth or Manilla from Byron Bay.  I leave the seaside town of Byron Bay Saturday morning and trek across the Great Dividing Range using several train, coach and hitch hiking hops, to arrive in Manilla Saturday night or perhaps Sunday morning if unlucky hitching the last stretch.  We shall see :-)

Today the wind is blowing in from the sea, bringing white caps and blue bottles.  Shared my roast chicken lunch with local fliers - the Gulls.

I am thinking I might slow down on updating FLYGIRL for awhile.  Of late, I must admit, I have become tired ....

I feel like taking a very, very long walk....

A 14 km beach walk in a National Park.

Skydivers, hang gliders off the Light House, a plane landing on the beach, cyclists, nudists and gulls, all in a day at Byron Bay :-)

Just finished a Live interview with Soli Philander on Cape Talk Radio and Jeff Ayliffe.  Not the best of telephone lines but we did ok, until he asked me about FEAR and what could he do to stop himself from becoming a 'screaming bitch' if he took to the air.  Soli is the drama queen of South African radio so can just imagine the antics he would get up to if he ever tried a tandem flight!!!!

But when Soli asked me about FEAR, I was not truthful.  We had just been talking about why it is I love to fly - the views, the eagles, the vultures I fly with, of touching the clouds and going far ... and I did not want to acknowledge fear in that moment.  Acknowledging the presence of fear would mar my reasons for flying.  And so I said there was nothing to fear from nature.  Not true of course.  The power of nature scares me all the time. I try to be respectful and play with her in the air when the time is right, but so often the power of nature will send me to the ground with my tail between my legs.  I am in awe of her always, a guest on this earth and in this sky.

Perhaps what I should have said was that 'There was nothing to fear, but fear itself'.

So often when I am in the sky, my perceptions are coloured by my confidence levels.  If I feel strong and confident within myself,  I find that I fly well, full of the joy that is the reason I put myself in the position of hanging from a piece of fabric by very thin lines two kilometers above the earth. Why would I do that if I was not getting something quite extraordinary from the experience?

And this is this reason that prompted me to say that I had nothing to fear from nature.  When I am close to Nature and I feel at One with my environment, I do not feel fear. I feel joy and wonder.  I feel alive ... and that is why I return to the sky, time after time.... to feel the harmony of being at One with our World.

It sucks being sick whilst travelling alone.  For one, there is no-one to make me home-made chicken soup!

Arrived back at Godfrey's Sunday morning after a day and a half of travelling from Byron Bay by coach to Casino, train to Grafton, coach again to Walrialda, hitching to Bingara, overnighting in a pub at Bingara as I ran out of daylight and then coaching the next morning to Manilla, followed by hitching out to the farm.

All this whilst nursing a mind blowing double ear, middle and outer ear infection.  Crossing the Great Dividing Range was an ear splittingly painful experience as my right ear resisted equalising to the change in altitude going up... and down.  Whimpering and with tears in my eyes, I had sympathy for the baby that was screaming its head off in the back of the bus whilst it mother admonished it to shut up and go to sleep.

So far I have spent R1 700 on two doctors consultations and a double course of antibiotics trying to kill off this ear infection.  Hopefully I will be able to fly in a few days time ... Yesterday a couple of pilots flew to Narrabri which is about 90 km so I am amping to get in the air and give chase.

Those who give me lifts express concern that I choose to hitch hike around Australia alone.  So far I have had only good encounters.  I feel safe in this land which is an illusion I know, as anything can happen at any time, anywhere. But I don't want to live my whole life in fear.  Australia offers me the closest I have come to freedom... and I want to enjoy this sense of freedom for as long as I can.  I have stripped down much of my gear to the minimum, leaving small parcels of excess clothing and equipment all over Australia with people I have met along the way.  There are times when I feel I would like to ditch my laptop even ... and just take off into the wilds of the Northern Territories ... I carry a little money with me always and maybe I will just keep going one day if I have the privilege of enjoying a really long flight beyond Narrabri ... maybe, one day.  It might only be for a few days, but there is something about the horison to the west - it calls ...

I have not written in a few days, nor have I flown, but life is good here in the rurals of Manilla.  Good company, good vibes ... I think it is called being at peace.

Elizabeth, Godfrey's Mom spoils me absolutely rotten :-) and I have made myself comfortably at home whilst owner Godfrey is away.  A good combination of pilots here at present - Waldemar - the German/Australian tree-tops fire watcher from Tasmania who is buying a house in Manilla so he can fly more often, Adam - the young and helpful 27 year old Australian who loves flying here so much he is also now house hunting, Micky the Drifter - with Fluffy his pet Water Python and much in demand espresso coffee machine, Lynne - the mother of two Singaporean city slicker, bravely dealing with all the creepy crawlies of ranch life and the utter darkness of the night, the sky with its million billion diamonds not light enough to make her feel at home yet and Dirk - the German nature buff who walks up Mount Borah with his backpack way too often and pictures himself doing headstands wherever he goes .... Good people all.  A combination that allows me to feel safe and relaxed.  I am content ...

18 March 2009

We have started flying again :-) ..... now that Dirk has gone :-(  We miss him, but he did say he brought the bad weather with him and, well now, that he has left us .... the sun is SHINING AGAIN and the sky is BLUE and yesterday I got away from the mountain for the first time in ages!!!!  Only paraglider pilot of about six to do so as well (devilish grin :-)  Three hangies also managed to get away in  the opposite direction after it blew out for the PG's, landing it Bingara in the opposite direction to me.  We were flying cross wind.

Not the biggest of cross country flights - straight line 18.5 km, landing a few km outside of Manilla on the Tamworth road.  We had a solid inversion at 960m ASL, Mount Borah west take off is around 850m ASL and the ground is at about 360m ASL so I flew the distance at 500m above the ground - not bad for me :-)

Wind was fresh from the west.  I was the last PG to take off before it blew out.  Micky our snake charmer had an unfortunate accident whilst top landing.  I was flying over take off at the time.  Saw him come in too far back behind the tree line just on the other side of the road that leads to west bomb-out. Next I looked he was on the ground, laying on his side and not moving.  He had an asymmetric about 8 metres above the ground and turned in on his DHV 1-2 Advance Epsilon. The four hang glider pilots (Richard, Bruce, Al and ..?) plus their drivers, ran to him. Al is a doctor.  I circled above keeping Bob who was at the bomb-out with his student, and Godfrey who was at the house updated.  It did not look good for awhile.  Godfrey has a camera on take off and went on line to see what was happening and told me to keep flying.  Seeing the results of an accident is hard, and for me, well, I don't think I can afford to see very many more.

I was hard pressed to stay flying, my enthusiasm drained, but I kept going.  Saw the pilots eventually help Micky to stand and I reported it in.  Everyone else except Robert the Polish pilot on his green and white Ozone had sunk out by now.  He broke through the inversion once and was higher than me, 1600m, but I could not get the same height without going too far back on the ridge.  He did not go anywhere deeming the inversion to solid for cross country flying.  For myself, I was only about 100m above launch.  Decided to head out into the flats as the drift onto the hill was getting stronger in the turns and I needed space between me and the ground, especially now after Micky.  The flats were a very good decision.  They were firing well.  Regular climbs, the broken red earth from the ploughed fields and erosion wash-aways working a treat.

A few kilometres from take off an eagle or some sort of bird of prey not quite as big as the other eagles I have flown with, came and joined me.  Flew straight for me in the front just below glider level then cruised around the back, coming up on my left wing at glider level, then fell away and again up behind me on my right wing.  It did not display any aggressive behaviour, nor fear, but when it positioned itself at my right wingtip, an eagle wingspan off, I cracked.  Normally I love flying with the Manilla eagles, but I was jittery about it today and felt it was an intrusion for some inexplicable reason.  It was so close and kept eyeing my glider and I don't know why, but I worried that he would tear my wing, even though its talons were folded away at all times.  Silly me.  This eagle looked almost vulture like, different to the others - maybe it was a baby.  Small head and white ruffled feathers around its neck, the rest of the body brown .  The neck feathers were messy and seemed to stick out all over the place, not smooth and sleek at all like the eagles I know.  I remembered what Andreas Rieck had suggested doing after his glider was attacked and slightly torn by an eagle last month and so I smacked down my right brake and rustled my wing.  The bird peeled off instantly, heading downwind towards the ridge where a blak bird of prey flew out to join it.  It was quite far away s I could not see what it was. This other bird was quite aggressive in manner and herded 'my' eagle away.  I was alone again ...

I crabbed out in front of the ridge heading south.  Over the Boggabri road I thermalled downwind cutting across to the Manilla Tamworth road.  Godfrey suggests I should have headed into the start of the Halls Creek Valley and up the spurs and onto the plateau going with the wind, but I have much psychological work to do in order for that to happen. Flying inot a valley and over hills and mountains low in wind makes me uncomfortable and I would have felt trapped.  Bob has flown 190km in this easterly direction, but says he would only do it at a minimum of 2000m, preferably 3000m ASL which sound entirely reasonable, so maybe I will give it a go one day when there is no inversion.   Occasionally I did break through the inversion today, once getting to 1300m ASL, 1100m and 1200m ASL.  It was rough above 960m and the ceiling was pretty well sealed for the most part though.  The hangies said it started working better in the late afternoon when they flew and they could get 2500m ASL in between multiple low saves.  Pretty much up and down all the way to Bingara (90km) for them

Made a mistake on my second to last thermal.  I could feel it wanting to pop over the small river before the  Manilla to Tamworth tarred road.  I should have waited, but did not.  Left the bubbles and encountered long sink.  At this point I should have gone back, but I am going to have to work hard on my aversion to back tracking.  I needed to go back for that thermal and wait until it was fully developed.  I crossed over the tarred road with the intention of flying the slightly upwardly sloping field to some low foothills, but the sink went on.  Turned back to get closer to the main road to avoid a walk out.  Saw my last thermal opportunity stirring it up over the surface of a dam.  I was high enough to go in and take it, but I have been shy of lowish saves lately, not sure if it would smack me close to the ground and so I did not commit.  Low saves are not usually an issue here in Manilla and I have to disengage my over cautious behaviour in this regard.  I had seen a few dust devils in the valley and on occasion there was evidence of whirly gusts washing through the reeds and Godfrey had noted over the radio earlier that this was evident at the farm, so I was being careful.  I landed safely, hitched a lift into town with a local by the name of Paul and Adam Osten kindly fetched me from the Royal Hotel where we had lunch.

Update on Micky:

Sadly our friend will not be flying for awhile.  His heel bone is broken in three places, he has another broken bone in his foot and a black eye.  He was transferred to Tamworth hospital where he will be undergoing serious reconstructive surgery with metal plates and all and will be residing for a long time.

In the Bright competition there was an accident at their first task. David Snowden was helivac'ed out with suspected serious back injuries after connecting to a tree just after take off and falling out of it, but it looks like he is going to be ok, the worst it would seem is a broken wrist...  The Bright Open websiteis not being updated with any news, results nor photos at present, after 4 days so far :-(

 20 March 2009

I am going to be off line for awhile, maybe as long as two weeks.  Going walk-about for the last few weeks here in New South Wales before flying off to Perth on the 15th April for Rod Merigans 50th Birthday on the 18th April and then home to South Africa on the 29th April. Not sure when I will be able to go online again :-(  Now that I have made the decision to go, I am trying hard not to cry and failing miserably.  I love it here in the country and the people are so good to me.  Manilla feels like Home and I am leaving and I don't want to!!!

31 March 2009

In Sydney for a few days investigating immigration options.  This Flygirl loves it here in the land Down Under and I would very much like to stay.  To that end, I have put my land up for sale in South Africa - see My Self Contained Home for the moment. Will upload a page specifically to the Land Sale in a few days.

The past week I have been hitching around with the 'truckies' and will be back on the road next week. I plan to extend my time in Australia as there is much I want to see and do.  A small section of the Northern Territories will take at least 3 months to explore.  Not sure If I will be able to stay there that long and will take one day at a time. I hope to stay on a farm for awhile as this is the lifestyle and people I find myself attracted to, and I will be visiting the National Parks.

Before discovering the Outback, I need to make a paragliding, sun, sea, surf visit to Bali, towards the end of April, after Perth, as my first 3 months will have been up.  From Bali I plan to re-enter Australia at Darwin and head for the Kimberly's.  Have not worked out how I am going to get around there yet.  The area is ultimate isolation and thank goodness I have SPOT as my travelling companion.  People say I should buy a second hand 4x4, but the cost is too high for me travelling alone. We shall see what transpires over the coming weeks. Much is in the balance for all this to transpire.

Plan to travel to Laurieton, near Port Macqaurie this weekend. Heavy rainfalls may make it more of a social, but I am looking forward to seeing somewhere new the company of paraglider pilots - Magdy from Australia, Nina from France, Pete Thompson from the USA and Ion from Moldova.

Still losing weight steadily. Leaning down nicely.  75kg at present. Last time I was this weight was when I was in kickboxing training and trimming down for a fight :-)

Here are some photos Jost took of my last launch in Manilla on 19 March 2009 where I flew cross country for 2 hours.  Have not written about that flight.

31 March 2009

In Sydney for a few days investigating immigration options.  This Flygirl loves it here in the land Down Under and I would very much like to stay.  To that end, I have put my land up for sale in South Africa - see My Self Contained Home for the moment. Will upload a page specifically to the Land Sale in a few days.

The past week I have been hitching around with the 'truckies' and will be back on the road next week. I plan to extend my time in Australia as there is much I want to see and do.  A small section of the Northern Territories will take at least 3 months to explore.  Not sure If I will be able to stay there that long and will take one day at a time. I hope to stay on a farm for awhile as this is the lifestyle and people I find myself attracted to, and I will be visiting the National Parks.

Before discovering the Outback .....