I've always had these romantic visions of soaring in the sky, just me an' me old trusty HG. And I count myself privileged to have actually done it- complete with eagles at my wingtips. Not unlike heaven itself however, the track leading to this ecstatic experience is twisty, rocky and uphill.

So, I got myself out of my comfy life in Carnarvon and met up with Bruce in Perth. We only had to buy about thirty items and check the functioning of another twenty. Unfortunately, our vast stores of organisational talent are entirely used up by work, leaving me erratic and Bruce chaotic. At suicidal speeds through the rush-hour traffic of Perth, getting tape, towrope, a parachute repack, batteries, maps, a torch and a knife. Frantically arguing about the fastest routes, the cheapest stores, KFC or McDonalds for lunch, the relative merits of each item and there was also shopping for dinner, a video to be brought back, and two wheelnuts missing from the car. We even procured GPS's so at least our location on the globe became certain. The trail on the little screen depicting our travels was not unlike the Gordian Knot. Meanwhile my new hangglider had not arrived from Brisbane, so there were frazzled telephone conversations to the Eastern states, the transport company and everyone involved.

When it came to actually packing the 4-dozen items which are indispensible for 'free' flight, Bruce introduced a military system:

RADIO!! Check! (holding up item) and Check!. VARIO!! Check! Check! Then batteries for same, charger for mobile, mobile itself, camera, batteries for that, GPS's, batteries, cables, ropes, tie-downs and tie-wraps and ties.. ad infinitum and nauseam. Obviously impressed with this simile of organisation I later heard Bruce stumble through the house: COMB! CHECK!!! ( well no probably don't really need a comb...) NO COMB! CHECK!

Well anyway... the hangglider arrived, the Saab was packed, and we set of to Wyalkatchem. That's a charming and picturesque pub surrounded by a street or two in the middle of the flyridden and sunbaked yellow expanses of the wheatbelt. Van Gogh would have gone out of his mind with the scenery. Our lodgings were in a railway barrack and the centre of activity was a paddock of 2 by 2 km near Wylie- as it's affectionately known. We were handed a map of the area we'd be expected to fly in and interestingly, it covered a greater area than the whole of Holland.

My new hangglider was a bit of a dud , riddled with rips and tears, and I spent all of practice day repairing them. On the first competition day, a gust of wind overturned the glider before I'd even flown and it developed a 1 metre tear in the sail. So I went back to Wylie and collected another glider. Which wasn't overturned, but did break a batten in another gust of wind. I decided that Karma was bad, and did not fly.

So I had plenty of time to watch the others. To inform the non-pilots, the basics of a competition are as follows: The pilots are in teams (the Raw Prawns in our case) which all have a means of getting into the sky. This varies from a clapped-up ute with a rope of 500m dangling behind it to very nifty computerized winch-systems (which fail -HA!) and even microlight airplanes. At the beginning of the day a course is set- the idea is to fly to point X about a 100 k's away. The one to do this quickest wins, but the stragglers also get points based on distance flown. So once things are in full swing, there are 8 cars driving up and down in balls of dust, five gliders on towropes behind them and another ten milling about in the air trying to find lift. Those who don't find lift land between the other gliders and aforementioned roaring cars and it's a miracle that nobody's been killed yet. Nose-ins, cartwheels, lockouts, hitting trees and fences- I've seen them all. Add the fact that pilots leaving the paddock to head out to point X are radioing in their positions so they can be found if they are forced to land and the information flow becomes a torrent. Meanwhile the omnipresent flies prey on all forms of moisture- and fully dressed for 5 degrees C at cloudbase, faced with the near-death experience of yet another tow - the sweat runs in rivers.

This is without actually flying. Other things that don't involve flying are the beer-fuelled stories of the thirty competitors in the pub at night. Good stuff!

On the morning of day 2, Sean- HG instructor- not only patched my sail with sticky tape, he also confirmed that the airframe was bent. After proclaiming it safe to fly, he actually put his money where his mouth was and FLEW WINGOVERS on my manky glider. Balls like watermelons! Plug for this man!

Reassured by this, I took off, flew 8 k's in scrappy lift and landed safely near Wylie. Only to find out later that anything less than 10 k's from take-off is scored as a bomb-out. Nil, that is. On day three injured my arms in a botched landing, and had to give up flying for the day. Day four was canned because of rain, and on day five my arms were still no good. The final tally is that I am now officially the worst hangglider in WA at a cost of about $100 a minute flying time.

Truly a rocky road to Nirwana.

Kees

....Two other hanggliding stories are in Dutch, firstly our attempts at becoming accepted by the local hillsoarers in " Heuvel" and secondly the report on my unofficial world record in hours- waited -for a retrieve-per kilometer-flown, "Skygod".