Lamington National Park

Its been quite rainy recently, so a hike in the rain forest sounded like the right idea. It has been the wettest season in 30 years and the Rainforest canape is incredibly lush. Marty's girlfriend and my tour guide Laura, charging through the forest. Every few minutes we had to stop and peal leechs of our shoes and ankles. A nice waterfall about 1/2 way round the 18km loop. There were quite a few of those. Fortunately Laura spotted this beast before stepping on it. A 7 foot Carpet Python, luckily it was well fed at the time.
Egg rock in Numinbah valley with Beechmont in the background. You might recognise pieces from previous ariel views. Some of the cliffs left there by the ancient volcano make for good climbing too.

Surfers Paridise

It has been hot here, and the flying a little mediocre this week, so we headed own to Surfer's Paradise to cool off. Looking the part (but I cannot surf worth a darn!)
Jonny has had quite a bit of practise on the board. The waves weren't all that great, but maybe that's not why it's called surfer's paradise...

Lawn Bowling

What to do when it is blowing 30mph in the mountains? Try lawn bowling! Oh, the consentration! Luke and winner, Big Jon. Tongue also necessary for concentration. Enda, Kerry & Marty. Luke an "Jonny didn't win".
And back to the pad at Beechmont.

Mt Tamborine

This is the North West facing launch of Mt Tamborine. The area is known as the green behind the gold (coast). It is really green this year after the wettest seaon in 30 years. Five of us flew on this "average" day. Jonny top landed so I followed a few locals out toward the west. They all landed at the small strip in the bottom left of the picture.
Looking back at Mt Tamborine, it is a sort of triangular plateaux.
I decided to carry on flying toward home, over Canungra toward Beechmont. Straight ahead is Lamington National Park.
Looking back over Canungra golf course.
Looking over to the gold coast over Beechmont.
I landed here across the street from Jonny's house and walked home. It was a fun flight for me and I owe Jonny big time!

Ozzy Bush Beasties

I went walk about and saw a few beasties. This Goanna was right next to the house and about 4.5 feet long !
This is about the size of a tarrantula but it floats on the surface tension of water.
A cascade that runs down by the side of the house.
Couple of dragonflies dancing around the creek.
The common tree frog. King parrot. Yet to find Mr Snake. But apparently there was a python over my head when I was doing laundry last night. I was completely unaware though.

Flying Beechmont

Jonny took me flying at his local site - Beechmont a couple of days ago.
A local pilot - Cathy at Launch.

Launch just a couple of km from his house.

Such an average day Jonny did not even fly. I had fun though. This is looking back toward launch.

Looking east toward to coast and Surfers Paradise.
Fun to the north at Cloudbase.
Lamington National park a 10km out to the south.

And back to Beechmont ridge for a top landing - Yeehaw.
A fun day indeed.

Stanwell Tops

The motley crew at launch. Blay test flying one of the five brand new Malibus built the previous day. Launch and the ridge to the north. There are some nice houses along the top built into the cliff and around the rocks. Guerie Beach, the northern most before the bay. I think my Tamsin took me here in 2001, it looks familiar.
Looking south back toward launch. A few spots to land but quite a carry out. Launch and Stanwell park is the designated landing area when coned off. Up to Beechmont next.

Gulgong closing ceremony

No more flying due to thunderstorms and terrential rain. so the below standings stood. Jonny 1st, Curt 2nd and Blay 3rd.

Gulgong task 3.

Task 3 - was set on a day that had a terrible forecast of thunderstorms and overdevelopement, but the sky looked great from the ground. There was very little lift upto the puffy cu's down at 44' MSL. Things were going quite well for me, with a good start time and being in the right place at the right time, but then like many I impatiently flew into cloud shadow and eventually went to the ground 60km out on a 100km task. The previous day, there was no task called, but a lucky few did get a ride in the KingAir that Guido is delivering. Quite a treat!

Gulgong Day 4 - no flying again.

The weather looks pretty dodgy for the rest of the comp. Hopefully we will get at least one more task in. Here are the results so far.
Here are the results from yesterday.
And the first task on Monday.