 The next morning we drove to the take-off site and found some of the puddles from recent rain frozen over solid. It was bitterly cold, and the wind chill was biting. Cloud base was scarcely a 100m above the plateau and the air on the thin side, but when Tom Eves took off and maintained, there was a mad scramble for gliders. Tom came back for his tandem while Jaco Wolmarans disappeared into the low cloud, then reappeared and decided he needed coffee more than the slaps he got in the cloud, only to find a 6 up at low level directly above top landing. This thump-on-landing was about to become the order of the day. When our test pilot Darron Gubermann came in for a top landing, there was a miscalculation as he tried to hand over the brakes to Craig Richards which resulted in Darron finding himself been dragged head over heels along the dirt road in the strong compression that set up.
The novices and I strangely felt more comfortable in the air than the more experienced pilots. Probably a case “ignorance is bliss”. We found the flying on Saturday superb. The wind was strong with punchy thermic conditions to boot and boot us it did. I was flying a Pro-Design Titan and enjoying the conditions with this rock steady wing. It's an interesting experience to find yourself going 4m/s up and right next to you, another bunch are going down at 3m/s down. That is a 7m/s difference - just like taking the elevator with glass walls! (It also happened the other way around!)…The drop off from the plateau is spectacular. I did not expect such an amazing site and one that is so easy to launch from and topland - I would love to fly Sutherland more often, but I reckon it can get pretty hectic in summer!  Sutherland - courtesy Greg at www.eternitypress.co.za
That afternoon, we headed off to the closest into-wind road for some winching. The wind was so strong that Ian de Vries, aka Dr Freeze, was yanked up into the sky on tow before winch driver Jaco had even climbed into his bakkie! Ian climbed to 539m ATO before releasing, going backwards and floating to an easy 6km glide through crappy thermals. I was next, but it wasn't easy, even though the conditions were slackening off a bit. The last to go up was new Overberg member Earl Valentine. He had never winched before, but you would never have guessed it. The wind calmed down a bit and straightened out on the road, giving him break. Ian got the best glide distance of the day. Sunday was a no-fly day due to low cloud, strong wind and occasional rain, but we got up to some suitable mischief on the 4x4 course at Skurweberg. There was a particularly frightening dip-steep-climb-narrow-car-width-hill that Berserker Bot flung his Isuzu double cab at. I was unable to climb out of the dip up the steep hill in my bakkie and neither was Bot ... initially. But he was not giving up. With Jaco as passenger, Bot let rip in very unBot style and screamed up the hill. I saw this maniacal grin on his face as he crested the hill ... triumph written all over it ... and it was still there in delayed reaction as they started sliding sideways down the bank, narrowly missing a bakkie-deep trench next to it. He was just about sitting on Jaco's lap due to the steep slope when he yanked the steering wheel downslope and avoided what would have been a disastrous roll into the trench – a ready-made grave. The owner of the place reckons that has got to be the most spectacular oops yet. He just shook his head when he saw the slide marks on the hill. 2Beers & Flygirl We decided that flying paragliders on the 4x4 course was much safer, so out came Jaco's wing, the cameras and the crowd. Jaco tried flying off the same high obstacle to glide across the trench, but only succeeded in landing in it. Greg Hamerton showed much more grace in running up from behind the hill, over it, and then gliding across. Meanwhile, on the adjacent farm where the Angelo Voulgarellis, Paul Allardice, Danny Daniels and Phillip Kannemeyer were staying, another drama unfolded. Angelo takes up the story: Sunday afternoon, Oom Jan, the farmer, climbed into his Toyota Hilux bakkie after a knertsie of brandy for the cold, and drove off to see how many of his sheep had surviced the cold. The area was lush from the recent rains and it wasn't long before he got stuck, the bakkie's chassis at ground zero. A neighbouring farmer phoned us and Phillip went to the rescue in the farm Landrover. Which ran out of diesel at the scene. Now there were two vehicles stuck in the veld. Oom Jan came back on foot to fetch some diesel. Visiting Tom Eves saw the commotion and came to the rescue with his newly serviced 4x4. But instead of pulling out the Hilux, Tom promptly buried himself in a new mud hole. Apparently the garage had forgotten to reconnect his 4x4 drive train! It was getting dark. The Landrover eventually got his knertsie, and after a bit of bliksemming of the starter motor, Tom's bakkie was pulled out. The Hilux however was buried for good and required the farm tractor. Monday was a no-fly day again with strong winds coming up from the Cape, so everyone slowly started heading back. Not much flying (this is becoming a regular feature of Overberg flyaways!) notwithstanding, the weekend was just plain fun and relaxation as we played indoor games next to the fire and enjoyed one another's company away from the city - especially as Cape Town was under storm siege! An article written for South Africa's local paragliding magazine - Go Fly | 
