"short-term" dreams! Early 2008

As we couldn't build a house straight away we got busy doing other stuff that had been on the back-burner for some years!

SKYDIVING IN FLORIDA!  - FEBRUARY 2008

http://www.skydiveseb.com/

 

First dream was to learn to "Skydive" so we went to "Sebastian" in Florida for 8 days for an "Accelerated Freefall" (AFF) training course....Scarey?....YES! First time I jumped out my brain couldn't compute what was happening for the first few seconds, I "FROZE", although still very aware I was plummeting to the ground at a rate of knots....fortunately the brain thawed quickly and I did eventually reach for the rip cord!

We've got all the kit, but have we got the nerve?...

  Smiling through the fear!!!

 Guy about to jump out!

......there he goes..."I'll be right behind ya!"

....here I go!

......"whaaaaaaaaaa!"

....."Ello there, actually you know this isn't so bad, I'm the right way up at least!!"

..."should be an airfield to land on around here somewhere!"

"This is cool! The view's Gr8!"

....."That's the chute pulled out, now, how do I fly this thing! I wonder if Guy"s on the ground yet?"

Gliding in South Africa - January 2008


We spent a week with Dick Bradley (Super nice guy!) who along with Reb Rebbeck (another Super nice chap!) run "Soaring Safaris" in Bloemfontein South Africa.  We both hired a glider from Dick and had a ball!  It was Jan 2008 and the weather was good, 5 days of good gliding weather and climbs in excess of 10,000 feet on some days, 300-500km tasks with few difficulties.   If you LOVE GLIDING, you'll LOVE IT HERE!

http://www.soaring-safaris.com/

A typical view from the cockpit, beautiful....no built up towns in view, very few airspace restrictions, blue skies and clouds to show you the way....FANTASTIC!

....Guy (centre!), telling "how he did it!"

Guy and his glider hired for the week (ventus)

Karina and her hired LS6c glider, a 17m wingspan with tips....Real nice :-), love it, thanks Dick!

Guy with Reb Rebbeck

Guy waiting to launch

"HAPPY DAYS!" 

Guy being towed into the air, he'll release from the tow plane when he feels a good strong thermal, about 1200-1500 feet was normal

12,500 feet and still going up!  The power of thermal activity is just amazing to me, even after all these years of gliding!

 Above 10,000 feet we went on oxygen ..... this set-up looks REALLY funny, but it's Gr8!  I much prefer it to using the black mask that covers your mouth and nose that I've had to use in the past! This one allows you to talk on the radio!.....Mmmm, I reckon maybe the other pilots wished they'd given me a black mask to wear!

 Both of us outlanded, never made it back to our original airfield, we got cut off by thunderstorms and 15 min later we felt their force!

 Guy walking over to see me

 Looking up at the sky above bad weather brewing

 2 min later I took cover in my glider as the thunder cloud did its worst

  Darkness fell as we waited for a retrieval, the ground beneath the gliders had become a bog and we were covered in mosquitos, they formed a crusty surface all over our bodies, it seemed we were their supper!  When Dick arrived with some others the gliders were in their trailers in a flash and it was time for food!

BOTH FLORIDA AND SOUTH AFRICA WERE A BLAST!

GETTING MY BASIC BIKE LICENCE! - JULY 2008

 Me on my first bike a Suzuki Van Van 125cc

  Great bike, loved it, LOVED IT!

 July 2008 got my Compulsory Basic Training (CBT) done, L plates on and I'm ready for some new adventures!!  It all started just a week beforehand, I was bored one lunchtime at work, so bought a book about two chaps travelling through Africa, they had done it on bikes, a form of transport which I had never tried and shown absolutely no previous interest in AT ALL!  My skills on 4 wheels are not great, ask my poor parents who tried to teach me!  Also any of my passengers!...But hey, you only live once...if you want to do it.....JUST DO IT!....So a week later I did!

ACCESS issues!

Access to the cottage is via a Byway open to all traffic, but nobody could get up it for 3 months of the year because the deep wet chalky ruts made it impossible, although not for a tractor!   Even in our 4WD I was scraping the axle along the middle of the rut.  The slippery nature of wet chalk and the camber of the slope meant you'd slide right over to one side and there was nothing you could do to stop yourself...take a look, don't be deceived, this is fine in summer, but one shower of rain and you can barely walk up this track for fear of slipping over! :

 This pic below is me standing on the rut edge, it's up to my knee and what would happen in the wet is the vehicle would slip to this left side of the track up against this bank and you'd stay there scraping away at this bank for the next 700m until the bottom of the track, no directional control at all...the passenger wouldn't be able to get their car door open!

So we spoke to the council, the track belongs to them...no help!  They don't see what the problem is and had no money anyway!  With no hope of an ambulance or fire engine ever getting to our house, let alone our friends and relatives, we said we'd pay in the end!  They said fine BUT it had to be done to a minimum specification...of course it did, especially seeing as they weren't paying for it!

Wintertime shots

Brrrr......OK, now this is chilly!  But, it's lovely too!  Various shots for winters 2008-2010, 4WD comes in handy on the track!  The house is in shade for 3 months of winter because the woods to the south are so tall, so the snow and ice hangs around longer up here. Mmm might think about moving it into the sun!