January 2009
Monthly Archive
Friday, 23rd January 2009
Judith 23 Jan 2009 | : Boring stuff
Our patience is being severely tried by the weather forecasters. Since we missed a perfectly good skiing day yesterday due to a bad forecast which turned out to be wrong, we decided to go skiing regardless. We were up early this morning, I cancelled my Spanish class and were all raring to go. On checking the forecast again, it was much worse than yesterday. Rain up to 2500m, 8C in the mountains (slush guaranteed) and possibly winds of 105km/h at 2500m (ergo lots of lifts closed). Scratch that then.
I went to my class after all and came back home to find the forecast improved dramatically (sunny, less wind) and the webcams in the ski resort showing everyone having a marvelous time. Arrrggghhhh!
How can they get it so wrong that it changes completely in three and a half hours?
Thursday, 22nd January 2009
Judith 22 Jan 2009 | : Miscellaneous activities
We should have gone skiing today, but the forecast was snowy and we didn’t fancy it. It was a mistake as it wasn’t flyable either. We worked until 3.30pm when we felt we needed (and deserved) a break. By way of light relief we went to Besalu to go round the recently restored and opened Jewish baths. Despite what it says on their opening times, it was closed. So what to do? I had a brain wave and we went for a walk down memory lane.
When we first came to this area on holiday thirteen years ago there was a tree house on the road just outside Argelaguer (between Besalu and Castellfollit). When I say house, actually it was more like a tree castle. It spanned 4 trees with bridges and platforms connecting the buildings. Each had at least one high (30ft) tower, some had several turrets, etc. It was all made of scrap: branches, old bed posts, pallets, etc. There were benches and hammocks made of barrels and crazy sculptures made of old buckets and baskets. It looked like Gaudi’s Sagrada Familia cathedral but made in wood. You could freely climb around and climb the towers. When we went there in 1996, the guy had been building it about 15 years, so it was massive. You could see it from the road and it would sometimes cause minor accidents when tourists would slam their brakes on to get a look at this strange construction poking out of the trees. After a couple of years the builder/owner felt he had gone as far as he could with the tree house bit and decided to build a maze around the place. It was made of tunnels made of branches. You then had to climb all around this labyrinth to actually get to the tree house and he integrated it into the maze, so the challenge became to work through this maze to climb the towers.
So as never to bore the local children, he would change the paths, so you couldn’t use the same route twice. He put little jokes in the maze, like in a dead end you’d find a mannequin’s legs sticking out of the ground with a sign above saying “Here lies the body of a tourist who never found the exit again!”. To make a long story short (too late!) it was absolutely brilliant. A free adventure playground, living sculpture and just unbelievable piece of engineering. So good, it made it into National Geographic magazine.
In 2002 they started to build the dual carriageway and they decided the tree house would have to be torn down to make way for the road. In the spring of 2003 we climbed around and up the highest tower for the last time and it was really sad. There were petitions and small protests, but it was still demolished. When we came back the following September, it was mostly gone and just a small tower left. So much for the history lesson…
Recently as we have been driving past the site, we have seen bits of the labyrinth re-built and a tall tower has shot up from the trees again. The gentleman who builds the place is getting on in years so we didn’t think he would bother again. So today we went and had a look. He obviously started again straight away as the place is huge. He’s integrated the culvert under the dual carriageway to create a glade with amazing water features, sculptures, etc. The maze is massive again and there are two towers. You have to go over and under stuff, squeeze through little openings and you are sometimes under the roots of the trees. We were so happy climbing around and eventually we found our way up the tallest tower again. Then we realised that time was getting on and we had to get our skates on to find our way out again before nightfall. Great fun!
Wednesday, 21st January 2009
Geoff writes: Our conference opened for reading today, which meant we had to register everyone, send out login information, etc. So we certainly couldn’t take the whole day out, even if it isn’t the actual conference, just the pre-conference reading week. However, we did manage to go out for a few hours this afternoon – and since the conference has delegates from all over the world, by the time we got back, some people were just logging on for the first time anyway.
It was a little chilly, but very sunny, with some nice cumulus. We went to Santa Brigida, which at first was very westerly, but gradually came around to the south. We managed to fly around 4.00pm, Judith eventually top landing, and me going down to the bottom when the thermals switched off. The place to be was, in fact, Puig d’Afrou, just down the road, but it’s a long drive up the mountain, and not top landable, and given our time constraints (and no-one to share a car with) we didn’t go. However, there were some French guys there – we saw two flying, getting pretty high, far higher than we did, and one at least probably went XC towards Olot. It was a great day if you were in the right place …….
Tuesday, 20th January 2009
Judith 20 Jan 2009 | : Boring stuff
After the fantastic week we had, the weather has turned bad again and it’s cold and grey.
Apart from working, we assembled a 7m ladder for Geoff to get on the roof and try to fix the satellite dish (it’s still not working). Whilst up there he managed to drop my radio (it’s still working). We’re still arguing about whose fault it was. [Geoff says: I’m not arguing. It was Judith’s fault. Still a good advert for Alinco radios – she caused me to drop a radio 6 metres, and it didn’t break, just one tiny crack]. [Judith replies: Caused? Like I sneaked up the ladder when you weren’t looking and shouted ‘Boo!’. That kind of “caused”?] [Geoff replies: you put it in the bag I was hauling up on a rope; and didn’t notice the bag had a hole in it!]. [Judith replies: Well it wouldn’t have fallen out if you hadn’t turned the bag upside down. Any more of this and I’m turning off your editing rights…]
Monday, 19th January 2009
Judith 19 Jan 2009 | : Boring stuff
The weather forecast was terrible and we were expecting to wake up to rain. But one look out of the window and it was a beautiful blue sunny sky. Big smiles all round till we saw the trees nearly bent double and the wave bars forming. Turned into a work day after all….
Sunday, 18th January 2009
The forecast was far from clear cut today. High cloud but clearing then clouding over, wind west in the interior but SW at the coast. Pick a site, any site….
We did a lot of phoning around getting weather reports from nearly the whole of Girona province and then settled on Sant Pere de Rodes, as we were going to see our friends Rolf and Dolores in Roses later and that would be the most convenient. We hooked up with Roger and Felix to share a ride and as we were walking up we were amazed to see a couple of pilots flying the north side. The place was packed with loads of pilots milling around. As we got to the launch we heard the words you least want to hear when getting to a flying site: “You can’t launch. We’re waiting for the air ambulance”. Unfortunately, the pilot was our friend Carlos, one of the sweetest guys around. He had a twist in his risers and spun back into the hill and smashed his knee on a rock.
Nobody seemed to have any first aid experience, so although I am a bit rusty, Geoff and I did what we could and the helicopter seemed to take ages. Eventually they did winch him off to great cheers from everyone. Hope he gets better soon.
It was still north and people started lobbing off pretty much as soon as the helicopter went. All had sled rides to the beach. Then it went west and we were all holding our breath and crossing our fingers that it would turn south (which is where all our cars were). It did and we flew down. Not much of a flight, but at least we flew, and always better to fly down than walk down!
Saturday, 17th January 2009
Geoff writes: The day started off a bit grey, but gradually got better. The wind forecast was for south, or some component of south. Judith was still suffering from her cold, and was willing to drive for me, so I decided to fly the hang glider at El Mont, the very high (higher than Snowdon) mountain just down the road from us. We drove up (at high speed, being a bit late setting off) and found (bizarrely) that it was north on top – not very strong, but the clouds were north west too, certainly not south. We phoned Nani, who earlier had said he was going to Sant Pere de Rodes. He said it was south there, and looked perfect.
So rather than sit it out hoping it would turn south at El Mont, we drove – again at high speed! – to Sant Pere de Rodes. This has to be one of the most beautiful sites there is. A spine back ridge, with sea on both sides, and a north and south launch. A ruined castle just above launch, at the top of the spine back; and a ruined monastery just below the north take-off. And views of the snow covered Pyrenees in the distance.
Unfortunately, when we got there it was north, and clagged in with orographic cloud. Some people had launched earlier and had a really nice flight, landing at the beach. Nani and another pilot hadn’t managed to get off, and were waiting on top for something to happen. It duly did – the orographic cloud cleared, it went south, and they launched. Nani did get up for a while, but they gradually lost height, eventually landing. I launched about ten minutes after them, maybe in a better cycle, and had an excellent hour’s flying, getting around 650′ ATO, enjoying the stunning views. For a site that doesn’t work that well in winter, it was surprisingly thermic (cumulus still forming at nearly 5.00pm), and was possibly the best flight I have had there. A great day.
(Good in other places too around here – Jenny and Udo from Clear Skies had great flying at Puigmal – a ski resort where paragliders go up free on the chairlift! And are allowed to go straight to the front of the queue!).