Road Trip!  Stanwell Park to Moruya... Our Hang Gliding and Camping Trip

Alex, Jonas, Wolfi and I packed up the Hilux and got on the road last week with Mt. Wandera on our sites.   There ended up being two very different aspects of hang gliding on our trip..first the in-land XC flight, and then later that day was our dune gooning session at the beach.

The adventure from Stanwell Park to the Moruya, NSW campground said 200km on the GPS.  We finally arrived late at the beach-side campground and couldn't see a damn thing, so we drove a few laps around and woke everyone up before finally settling on our perch for the next two nights.

Mt Wandera is an in-land site that takes a light NE wind.  This place is heaven, but everything is technical about this place:  The take-off is a tree-slot and will eat you if it's not blowing up the gap.  The distant bomb-out LZ is a long, flat, glide out, so a high performance hang glider is required;  And you'll need a 4x4 with high clearance to get up to launch and also to make it to the bombout LZ (if needed!).

On launch (1700feet msl) we saw the sky was actually filling with too many nice looking clouds, as it started to shade the heating on ground.  I lobbed off first and found just about what I expected....almost no lift.  What?  But, this place COOKS!!??? What's happening???  Well, I actually hung in there for over an hour, working very light lift (from one low save^? to another) and finally making it up to cloudbase at 3700 feet, which is quite low.

The pie in the sky...the goal.. for a few of us (Adrian, Dave, Franco, Trent...) at this site is to bust out a BIG flight in-land to the west...but it's tricky getting out of there. Going west, "over the back", requires thermaling up pretty high and then gliding on full commitment with no turning back, and sparse landing options below.  Besides this, you'll typically be bucking a cross-head wind.  -And all of these add up to make the challenge that much more intriguing.  It's a monkey on our back, and we can't seem to shake it.  So far, Dave and Trent have had the best flight at 90km's near Braidwood.  

OH YA, did I forget to mention the two local Wedge-Tail EAGLES that LOVE to THRASH the top-surface of your sail as your trying to make a low-save?  They tag-teamed, WWF style, with six different hits on my Moyes RS4 on this flight, but eventually gave up when I out climbed them in a thermal.  I wasn't about to run away from these guys...I drove a long way and this was my day off.  Hmm, now I'll need to head to the Moyes factory to get a patch on my right wing-tip (lick my wounds).

Well, we all had a dig and but didn't make it far on this day...but man it was scenic, and we can't wait to go back to Mt Wandera.  Thanks to our local flying buddy Adrian for flying and guiding us.

Later that day we headed back to the local sand dunes just south of Moruya and scored some cruisey coastal flying.  Too easy as we set up and launched from the grass, and then took turns on the Malibu, top landing each time.