HG School

Seems to be a bunch of people this year that are keen to learn hang gliding.
Kelly's got her own glider which makes things super easy (rounding up the gear is generally the tricky bit).







My mate Sean dug up this other beauty for those lacking a glider (himself included). I know... she's a real flash machine :) She's an old beast of a glider, but we're lucky to have her and it'll be perfect for training. I started on a very similar glider myself.

The Fabulous

I've moved into town.
I now live at the base of the gondola in "The Fabulous"

Ha... I thought it was Portuguese... La Favela.
It means "Shanty Town". We just call it the ghetto. Someone tried to spice it up (and couldn't pronounce the Portuguese) and it became "The Fabulous"

It's a dive. Think frat house and you've got the idea. The shower water handle is a pair of vice grips clamped onto the bit that spins. It's good fun. Lots of people. No stress... and no sleep. Well, on the weekends at least. No one takes anything too seriously, especially since people aren't always around all that long. Some stay weeks, some stay months.

Who knows. It's fun for now.

Craziness

So things have been a bit crazy lately.
The weather came right, so work's been full-on. I've started flying at the Wakatipu Aero Club (regular planes). Loads of after work fun with the guys at the flight park. And oh yeah, I've moved. Chaos is my middle name.

I just got the internet sorted. I'll work on getting some pics of the happenings up. Gotta let things settle down first.

Jim

Rain

Well, payment for the perfect day I guess.

The other day was absolutely smashing. Flew a few tandems in the morning. Got to fly my PG in some sweet mid-day wonderful air (wicked good day) and then some more tandems in the evening while everyone else had to sit through a "seminar" (poor buggers). To top it off, went over and flew the gondola with our driver... landed and Richard wanted to D-bag, but couldn't find a tandem pilot to drop him. Ok. Sure. :) Bopped down to the local pub afterwards where everyone was recovering from the seminar. Headed home a bit later and zonked out. Oh, mid 70s and sunny. Doesn't get better.

So, today's fine. It's been raining all day. It'll still be raining a bit in the morning, but should clear later. That's a lovely thing about Queenstown... it rains, then it's over.

Long Days

The days are almost too long here. I know, crazy?
Yeah, it's 9:30pm and it's still light out. It will be till around 10. It'll be light around 6:30am. Hahaha, I've started sleeping with one of those eye cover thingys.

I'm not complaining. I like it this way. It's just weird.

Unsettled

The weather for the last two days has been less than perfect.
We even had thunderstorms the other day... very rare here. I've seen them once before.

Anyway, things cleared a bit, so I headed outside and figured I'd get to those bridge pictures I'd promised...


Here's the bridge from below.


From the side obviously.


Ok, now the fun stuff.
This is what it looks like on top... notice my hand... on the rail.
It's a big railing, you're not going anywhere, but yeah... I have to hold the railing o take a picture.


This is what things looked like when a car went by.
I mean really... I fly for a living.
I should have no problem with this. But yeah, it took a bit for me to cross that bridge. I stopped anytime a car went by. I didn't deathgrip the rail or anything, but I stopped... I could have kept going, but it just felt better to stop.

The irony is not lost on me.

Hike

Decided to have a hike out back the other day. Up past my neighbor's house. There's a trail that starts just up there.


Here's the view.
I know, just horrible.


Here's a bit further.
I don't know how I put up with it.


You can see the shotover bridge pretty well from here.
I'll get some more pics of that later... it's right outside my flat. Seriously.
It's called the "shotover" bridge cuz it crosses the "shotover" river.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Shotover_River
Ok, but what's in a name?
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Shotover

You might know it from... dum de dum... yeah, Lord of the Rings... like everything else around here ;)

Tea?

The Kiwi's take their tea pretty seriously... One of our pilots, Swanny, likes to have a cup of tea before he takes his tandems for a flight. So on takeoff, there is a permanent propane fired tea kettle with tea, sugar and water. That's dedication.

Aaaah... Queenstown

Yeah, it's like that.

Aqualand!

Couple bad weather days here lately. Ah well, that's Spring for ya.
No worries. We all headed down to Alpine Aqualand by the airport. New Zealand's idea of a public pool... well... kicks ass!

Lets see... there's a lap pool of course. Big deal. Then there's the waterslides, the funpool... complete with water cannons! No kidding. And not like just water jets... these are full on aim at your friends swiveling turret water cannons!... the "lazy river" where you get swept along by the current round and round a winding path... and my personal favorite, the gigantic hot tub :) (like 20 people gigantic)

Well worth the $8 admission price ($4.30US)

Glorious Internet :)

Ahhhhhhhhhh
Oh that's much better.
Got the internet sorted out today. Happy times. Now we have net at home. See, I'm living just outside Queenstown at the moment and my car is in the shop. It takes me an hour to walk to town... it's less if I hitchhike, but that's not exactly reliable. Besides, I don't like being separated from my gear (paraglider) since you never know when the opportunity to fly will arise.

Anyway, it's all better now. And just in time... the weather's meant to go back to crap for a bunch of days. I can only watch so many movies before my head explodes. I find the internet sooooo much more entertaining.

Now if I could only get my car back! Hahahahaha. Priorities. I'll take the net first thank you.

So today was lovely.
It's been pretty crap lately, but that turned around today. Sunny, warm, good flying and flying all day. Yum. Then went down to the local pub where all the pilots hang out after the day's flying is done and hahahaha... there's some guys basejumping off tandem paragliders over town and landing on the beach. Would you believe that's not an uncommon occurrence here? I love this town. :)

Net

Sorting out the net at the moment.
Hopefully have that up soon. Living without internet is... uh... well it sucks. At least we've got plenty of access in town. My car's out for inspection at the moment, so that leaves me to maybe a daily hit... but it should all clear up soon. Oh well.. guess I just go fly ;)

Cheers
Jim

Auckland

Just got into Auckland.
Couple hours till my flight to Queenstown, so I figured I'd surf a bit.
Easiest Pacific flight yet... slept almost the whole flight :)
Did get one movie in "Tropic Thunder". HA HA HA funny stuff.

A mate of mine, Tom, hooked me (and him) up with a sweet flat so that's sorted. Arno's been looking after my car for the winter. Gera's picking me up at the airport. And I got my work visa done before I left the States, so hell... let's just play! Too easy.

Tick tock... hour and 1/2
Jim

Fun at the beach

So my main excuse for being up here in San Fran is to help Tom with his paragliding. So, oh darn, we had to go fly today ;)
I've been staying with Paris and Toni till now. I hopped a train South last night and am now staying right next to Stanford (Tom's doing his PHD here). We drove down to Seaside (next to Marina) and had loads of fun mucking around on the dunes.


Muggin


The locals know how to have fun on the dunes as well.

Keepin busy

Yesterday, there wasn't much flying to be had, so we all went over to the local park (two blocks away) and played frisbee golf.

Today however was different... there was flying to be had.

So we went over to "Mt Tam" for a fly.
Mt Tamapai is the park on the other side of the Golden Gate bridge. It's a nice isolated nature place. Me, Don and some of the locals took a little hop.


Tam's neat cuz you land on the beach. You can fly over the ocean for a bit, which I did. Fun stuff.


Here's one of the locals, Phil, doing a very nice landing.

SanFran

Arrived in SanFran today. I'm visiting some hang gliding friends of mine, so what do we do after grabbing my checked bags? That's right... straight to the flying site :)

Got a lovely flight in at Ft Funston... an icon in the hang gliding world.
Oh yeah, took a hike later by the Golden Gate bridge too. Of course.

Mmmmm... jetlag kicking in.
Jim

Where does the time go?

It's that time again... well almost. I'm heading out to San Francisco to visit with some friends and teach a little paragliding before jumping the pond. That'll be next week.
But all loaded up. I was worried about my bags at first... I'm taking my drum kit and was afraid it would wind up too heavy. I did what I could to lighten things, but it still felt bricky. 70lbs max for Qantas. 50 for Southwest tomorrow. Uhg... Well the scales told a different story. 40lbs. Whew. Even if the scale's off a bit, that made me feel a whole lot better.

Ah well. Off to la la land.
Jim

Buffalo trip

If that ain't "Americanna", I don't know what is.


Ok, we'll get the "oooooh... look at the fall colors!" stuff out of the way first. Yup, I'm jaded I guess. Just looks like Fall to me ;) That's Mike with Natalie btw.


Everyone knows they want to be in the "classic Jim" shot.
You don't have to hide it, ya know ya do. It's ok.


The crew heading out to Tina's Italian Restaurant for dinner on Berny's birthday. Heck, even Gramma showed up :)

There ya go. Didn't exercise my camera too much... like I said, just looks like "Fall" to me ;)

Tick Tock

I just looked at my calendar this morning... OMG!... just over two weeks!
Wow

I'm planning a NYC trip for next week, then it'll be off to San Francisco to teach some paragliding, then POOF! Off to Queenstown!

Fortunately my Visa came in the other day and my flight's booked, so all I really have to do is pack :)

Happy times
Jim

It's c-a-c-a-cOLD!

Um, no thank you. I stayed a little too late this year. I think I'll leave in like August next year! Hahahha, I was brushing my teeth when I noticed I could see my breath... ahhhhhhhhhh!

Ah well. That just means travel season is upon me. Which also means I'll be updating my blog more regularly as well.

I'll put up some pics from my recent Buffalo trip tomorrow.
Jim