| Flight details: | Great fun flying in Wales; it's so beautiful.
Sociable event as always, flying with the slackers; Matt Canning, Matt Cowen, David Williams and Alex Buck.
It was a mixed day - my first take off ended with a slope landing and the sweaty hike back up the hill. Second take off and I climbed to a decent height, drifting slowly behind the front - then pushed forward again with maybe 500' and connected with a good climb which I took over the back. After leaving the hill there was very little wind and as Matt Canning mentioned in his post, we found ourselves circling for ages and making no ground whatsoever (ie just height).
Luckily I got a series of good climbs and got to cloudbase a few times with one of the strongest climbs above Brecon. After a couple of hours I was pretty tired (mentally) and really cold, with my hands completely numb (I need to get some heated gloves!). I was at around 4000' close to Pen Y Fan, which was awesome (I've walked up it many times!) but was then conflicted as I'd hoped to get to Rhossili and knew I was heading the wrong way if I went over Pen Y Fan - someone had mentioned going up the valley by Sennybridge, so I figured I should fly cross wind that way in the hope I'd pick up a good climb - I didn't (although I tried damn hard)!
I kind of bottled it at the prospect of going over the main Brecon Beacons, to be honest, as it was a bit intimidating but was then kicking myself afterwards! Ah well, it was a privilege to fly in such a beautiful place, so I really shouldn't grumble. |
