January 2011
Monthly Archive
Monthly Archive
A nice sunny day forecast and this promised good conditions at Santa Brigida for our first flight of the year. However, Johnny had also promised us that if he was going to do another base jump, he’d let us know so we could go and watch. Co-ordinating the flying with the watching turned into a bit of a headache, so we went to Santa Brigida first and Geoff flew and got a good thermal; Nicky and I got ready and predictably, as soon as we had the gliders unpacked and ready to clip in, Johnny’s phone call came. We’re usually the last to leave the site, so people were a little perplexed when we all started packing up our gear as fast as possible, without having flown, and then making some fairly crap excuse as to why we were going.
We grabbed Marc on the way past the landing field and headed off to the dam up the road to meet John and Johnny. It’s 135m high and enough for a 2 second jump, before the chute is released. The build up was pretty exciting, watching Johnny get ready and then waiting for all the tourists to disappear, so he could jump without anyone calling the cops. The jump was amazing.
Here’s the clean version of the video.
Here’s the video with commentary (don’t watch if you’re offended by swearing)
After resounding applause, we rushed back to Santa Brigida, leaving John to collect Johnny.
The conditions had mellowed a lot, but we still all got nice flights, although it did get a little crowded at times, with lots of others coming out for the first flight of the year. In the end, it was a really lovely day and a nice mix of excitement and chill out boating about. And we got to say good-bye to Nicky before she goes off to Colombia for a month tomorrow. Hope the flooding subsides!
Judith 02 Jan 2011 | : Walking
We were hoping for the first flight of the year today, but it wasn’t to be. Like yesterday, if we had been desperate, we could have found somewhere to throw ourselves off, but it seemed a waste of a day where we could do something else. Geoff felt rotten with the cold, but I was much better, so Nicky and I set out to the Argelaguer tree house. I haven’t been since March, and the owner is always working on it, so we wanted to see what progress he’s made.
The new entrance is now through a tower which we christened the ‘voodoo temple’ because he’s made all the barriers around the platforms out of walking sticks made with real birds heads, animal feet or weird looking faces. It wasn’t at all pleasant. The builder has added loads of strange paraphenalia (like in the old days of the previous tree house), so there are teddies and toy rabbits hanging from trees, wild boar heads staring out at you and endless other toys and things. The labyrinth is much, much bigger and there are new towers too. And one that’s collapsed, but we didn’t want to dwell on that while we were climbing another…
After getting thoroughly muddy, we headed to Banyoles for something to eat. We were ladies what lunch for the day and polished off a three course meal, half a bottle of wine and a couple of coffees before walking it all off with a loop round the whole lake. We had a lovely day and then went home for a siesta that never happened, but had leftovers curry and more playing the labyrinth game, before having an early night.
Geoff 02 Jan 2011 | : Party, party, party...
Geoff writes: the last day of the year, but, sadly, not flyable (unless you’re really desperate, in which case maybe we could have found somewhere). Also, whilst Judith was slowly recovering, I was slowly getting worse. So we spent most of the day working. Nicky came up late afternoon for New Year’s Eve, so we went for a walk to Besalu, her first time there, then celebrated New Year with food and too much cava.