Last Saturday I’ve joined the Book Lounge meetup in Cape Town where all crafters meet. I’ve met Liezl from My heart dreaming. Liezl worked on a very nice project: she collects small stones from the beach and crochet around them to produce a necklace for their friends from oversea. What a nice idea! And I’ve met June from PlanetJune. June designs crochet patterns for realistic animals. This day she worked on a pattern for a small turtle. So cute!
After the meetup I went for another kitesurf session. In the evening I’ve joined the goodbye-party of a dutch friend. We went to the city for dinner and later we rocked the Aces and Spades Club. What a cool time we had.
Luckily the other day wasn’t windy so we had time to recover from the hangover :-) In the evening we were invited to join a braai at Big Bay. With a fantastic view towards the sea we enjoyed to hang around with some guys.
For Monday the wind forecast looked awesome: they said there would be wind around 20 knots. As the wind gets usually stronger during the day I set up the alarm clock for around eight o’clock. When I went to the beach to check the wind and waves, it wasn’t that good as the forecast said. So I went back, had breakfast and went then on the water. I’ve ridden all by myself. Later the day my boyfriend and two other guys tried it in Yzerfontein. That’s a town around 50km towards north. It has a wide beach with very nice waves. But the wind wasn’t strong enough so they rather preferred to play with their kites at the beach.
As I do paragliding too, I took the chance to fly when there’s no wind. So we went to Sir Lowry’s Pass which is next to Somerset West. There’s a parking lot with a very nice view and the launch for paragliders. After a first retrieval of my friends I launched. I couldn’t find any thermals to stay up in the air and had to land. There’s a road next to a farm where you can land. Beside this road are many bushes and from the air it looks like they were tiny but they’re man’s high. My landing was on the road but as I had tailwind I was faster than I wished to be and preferred to land on the protected bump. As I sat just down while landing, my glider landed in the bushes and it took me a while to get it out there. I gave it a try a second time. Now I had just the perfect timing. It went only up. And I could enjoy the view. I’ve managed to stay in the air around one hour. When I had to land, I did make sure not to land my paraglider in the bushes again and it worked out well. What a great flying day!
After an exhausting and hot day of flying I relaxed the day and prepared myself for the next day.
The forecast predicted for the next day no wind, so we went flying again. But this time we had to get up early: the alarm clock went on at 6.30. At seven we drove towards Porterville which is located countryside. It’s a small town but is located next to a long ridge which is perfect for flying distance (it’s also called „cross country“). Along the ridge you can find thermals – which are sometimes very bumpy – and work your way along it. As there’s farmland, there’s plenty of space to land. Just make sure you don’t land next to ostriches – or even more dangerous: wilde beast. At nine we arrived at the Flyer’s Lodge a place where paragliders can stay overnight and hang around. Bradley who works there organised for us a driver to have a retrieval. After a short briefing our driver brought us to the launch on Dasklippass and we launched our paragliders. The forecast for the thermals didn’t look good for this day but we tried our luck. One of us flew around 130 kms (it took him more than 6 hours!). I wasn’t successful. I had to land after 10 minutes. Even a second start didn’t helped me to get further. I could find for only 20 minutes any thermals. But hey, I’ve tried it :-) After a jump in the pool of the Flyer’s Lodge we headed home and felt after dinner finally in bed.
It was a busy week. Finally the weather got better, even if it is for kitesurf or paraglide. But my body feels exhausted and I needed a rest. Time to work on some patterns, get things done for the website and so on.
This week my eyes got opened due to the people I’ve met. Sometimes you take some things for granted. And then someone reminds you what unusual stuff you do. I’m grateful for my life, that I’m able to kitesurf and paraglide and that I can walk again. It’s not a normal way to live as I do and now I got reminded. In this way I fly high – or in africaans: vlieg hoog!
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