So since I just had ear surgery on fri and I rarely drink the fire water anymore I been the sober witness to 2 house party's full of complete drunkards going hard liqour straight from the bottle. Peaceful though, and I am not one to judge so good luck to them.
So what are you up to on this Australia day?

sbs chill 100 with few bottles red with the misses in this ****ty rain.! OH! and im the only mother****er who flew today on sunshine coast cause i nearly bit the bullet for sure hahahaha 1200-1230 ended up getting sucked up in a developing storm cloud on sunrise beach had to fight for 10 minutes to get down. pretty hairy **** so not im blissin out it seams like it happened yesterday

TLDR DOOONKRKON DROOONK

awesome morning down the foreshore with the kids
free waterslides, bouncy castles free sausage sizzle top stuff

Back there for fireworks at 8pm which may be rather different vibe I fear.....

Wondering WTF is with Google's banner today could have at least made it 50/50 to acknowledge both sides fairly and nicely

Yeah yeah nice one, weather is rather shizer on the sun coast today yah.
So whats the deal when paragliding did you get stuck in a up draft or gust or venture to close comulonimus formation or what?
At sunrise do you launch off the headland somewhere like pt Cartwright?

I see what you mean about google now.

nah cartys is way south im at sunrise. .... ill do a few screen grabs.... basicly when a cloud "develops" its just pressure right.... pressureizeing gas makes its temperture change which then eventually hits what we call a dew point thats the point water vapour forms around particles like dust smoke or sunrises case mostly salt crystals from the huge swell smashing our coastline. so the pressure drops water forms cluds develop winds pick up but this energy forming these clouds is quite a fair bit of energy so it sucks up the wind in a stange phenomomenum we call cloud suck. if you ever been kiteing and the winds died off but theres a black cloud forming upwind of you several hundred meters away its due to this. so even tho it was a fairly reasonable north easterly (sunrise is an easterly ownly launch dont try this at home yadda yadda) the developing clouds reached quite low and managed to suck up all the air that was down to about a thousand feet which isnt much.

so i was getting lots and lots of lift in places i would normally be getting sink like out over the sand/water where there is no hills etc. dont really want to incriminate myself to much...i mean it aint illegal just irresponsible and i wanted to fly today no matter what the conditions and people have done far worse but at 4 years im still very much a beginer.

Fair go onya. Out of interest whats a paraglider setup cost to start out? And how many hours of lessons approx before a beginner is competent to jump off a hill?

gears about 5k brand new course is about 2k eveyrwhere in the world. can get a course for 1k in eastern block or chile etc but its all a bit muddled with international standards and language barriers. second hand you could get a reasonable setup for 3k.

problem is thats just the start. you then need to add on varios radios towing endorsements reserve chutes vhf licences gloves helmets winter clothing etc etc times the real killer. you need to get a divorce to become competent really theres even an acronymn for it. aids. aviation induced divorce syndrome.

Hot n humid in Cairns, a touch of the wet season, which is awesome. Picnic at Goldsborough R with some hot chips and a coldie at the Mountain View Hotel. One of the best beer gardens in Oz.

Came home and gave the cars their biannual wash. Now getting the munchkins ready for the 1st day of school.

Camped at bush block near beach with family last night. Woke up this morn to the smell of coffee from the billy, eggs on the bbq and (scarily) watched smoke from Tassie fires drift across the horizon.

After lunch, enjoyed a bay-blast windsurfing an onshore breeze and finished off with a few Coopers Pale Ales. Just before heading home, kids conned me in to putting the kid's rig on the board and me, a proud dad, watched 2 of my 3 young kids really start to get the hang of controlling the rig, whilst I held my 5yo and the rig all while she yelled to her mum "look mum, I'm windsurfing!"

Finished off the day with good friends, family, bbq and a few more ales.

Great way to spend a day and appreciate the freedom this awesome country affords us.

Pretty sure white folk killed black folk and us white fellas seem to want to celebrate it, As I have for many many years.

I wish I did not spend the time to actually understand the true meaning behind Australia day today as it was raining and family was crook.

Select to expand quote

Mark _australia said..

Wondering WTF is with Google's banner today could have at least made it 50/50 to acknowledge both sides fairly and nicely

It was great wasn't it