The cold dew, Road Trains and Rail Trains kept me up for
most the night, but I roll out of bed as soon as I hear Glen moping around in a
morning crank. After a series of takeoff miseries with Mark yesterday, we hope
that we can get him up in the sky early today. By 6 am, he’s harnessed up and
ready to go, but like yesterday, the winds are dead, and moving all over the
place. Morale is low, for the whole team and Mark needs a good takeoff to give
not only him, but the whole team a lift in spirits.
With the Parajet spinning, Mark gets off to a slow run and
struggles down the field, his sail is pushing him from left to right to left
again. He’s two thirds the way across and still stumbling. Finally with a great
blast of throttle, his feet come up, the Paramotor sinks and just kisses the
ground, the three of us hold our breath as he skims out of the freshly cut
Cricket pitch and into the long grass beyond. He lifts out of the long grass,
but directly ahead, a stand of trees look him straight in the eye. With
throttle maxed, he splits between two trees, just grazing the right tree with
the tip of his wing, and lifts into the safety of open air. A huge sigh of
relief and pleasure comes over the three of us left on the ground, nervous
chuckles of what could have been. Had Mark caught one of his guide wires on the
branch he hit, it would have been disastrous, ripping him around and dragging
him out of the sky.
Glen rushes back to his Paramotor, with a nervous grin,
barking away, “Jeez, that guy is going to give me a god damn heart attack,”
followed by the usual swearing and cursing that regularly spews from his mouth.
He throws his Paramotor onto his back, powers up, and shoots into the sky with
a fair bit of difficulty himself, taking an uncharacteristically long run to
get up, the dead air playing havoc with everyone. However, now it was time for
the drama’s to hit Glen. His motor bouncing the throttle, something didn’t seem
right, then the issue went away and the two floated off into the distance.
However, as Craig and I broke camp, we start to hear the familiar drone of the
Paramotors coming back. Glen does a quick fly by, yelling at us that he’s lost
his flight computer, a little handheld screen that displays GPS, Compass,
Direction, Altitude and such, a rather important and expensive bit of kit.
Craig and I scour the takeoff path as Glen comes in for a landing, cursing and
yelling his frustrations. Glen and Craig continue to run back and forth on the
field in search for the little black computer, while I scan the video footage
for a clue, not are found. On my way back out to show Glen the footage, maybe
he can see something I can’t I stumble upon it just around the starting area,
sitting neatly in the grass.
Carrying his Paramotor back to the takeoff point, Glen try’s
to start his motor to get back in the air with Mark who is circling above.
Whah, whah wah. The battery is dead, and another stream of profanities spews
from Glen’s mouth as he dismounts once again. Craig and I rush to the camper
and break open the spares box. Thankfully a spare battery is sitting there and
we rush it over to Glen’s machine hoping that it came with a good charge. After
a couple failed attempts to start and frustration rising, Glen finally sparks
life into the Parajet, and rockets in to the air with the upmost of anger. We
cheer as he gains altitude and swings by, his attitude turned 180-degrees
kicking his feet in the air with joy and cheering us on. We’re back on the
road, back on task.
After a refill at an airfield in Pentland and more takeoff
dramas for Glenn as the wind just will not keep in the same direction, they
finish off a good mornings flight in the equally small village of Torrens
Creek. We make our way back into the village centre, a bar and gas station, and
find parking in a field next to the bar with power, and we head in, Mark is
buying a round for thanks, as are patience with his liftoffs kept a pressure
free environment. The inside of the bar is unique to say the least, the
bartender is working on a Harley in a garage off to the side and meets us
inside the bar, which is covered in felt pen autographs and graffiti, flags,
photos and mementoes of passers buy. The bearded bar keep at first seems
annoyed that we interrupted his Harley time, but after we buy a round, he’s
deep in conversation with Glen, who has a knack for getting to know everyone he
meets. Many subjects are covered, why we’re here, what the weather is like, how
far down the road the next towns are, but what peaked my attention most was his
talk of killing three large snakes in the last couple days in and around the
building. “Yup, big Blacks they were. Gotta watch out for them, this is real
snake country, and they’ll kill yah quick. And they’re vicious too, they’ll
attack you!” My phobia, while being controlled at the moment just took a real
hit. It didn’t help that when we left the bar, I was buzzed by a hornet about
3-inches big and found a beetle up against the wall the size of my hand.
Everything in this country seems to want to kill me; everything is bigger,
meaner and poisonous. And everywhere I look, nature is fighting itself. Bird in
particular are constantly screaming, fighting and keeping me up all night. Even
as I write this, some big white Parrot is screaming out its death throes as it
is slowly devoured by something evil behind the leaves of the tree on the other
side of the road. Australia is such a beautiful place, yet so raw and viscous
at the same time. I love and despise it at the same time.
We move the launch area out to an old abandoned World War II
airstrip just on the other side of town. More dramas plague Marks engine and
we’re spending another night on the ground.
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