The Longest Friday

One thing Australia is not short on is coast line….obviously since it’s a continent size island!   The significance of this never dawned on me until I got to Western Australia….where pristine white sand beaches and wilderness coast line stretch for thousands of miles.

The nutrient poor soils, lack of water, and harsh weather kept the human population density low, consequently preserving epic tracks of wild land for me to ride through.  That being said, human impact on Australia has had its affect with the extinction of giant kangaroos and 2.5 ton wombats (combination of aboriginal hunting and climate change),..or the more recent loss of the Tasmanian tiger. (some say the tiger still exists in the impenetrable forests of Tasmania..rumor has it that there’s a massive cash reward for anyone who proves it exists)

With a mix of all types of interesting dirt roads,..Fitzgerald National Park has got a lot to offer for anyone appreciating the outdoors.  The roads were closed for the wet season…but coveted track information flowed freely over cold beers at the local pub.  Armed with local knowledge of gate bypasses and backwoods farm tracks…it was a VIP dirt ride entrance into the park.

After a reconnaissance of the area,..I knew I needed my glider.  My wing was over in Albany being repaired…so it was a 600km return trip…I just couldnt wait 3 days for the post.  Well, the weather switched as soon as I arrived back at the park with the glider after a long days ride.  High winds and various high pressure systems were moving through for the next week.  I was super dismayed….the joke was on me for wasting petrol and time just cus I didn’t check the weather report.  I went up the mountain anyway…hoping to get a window as the sun set…no luck….but its good to test your own maturity once in a while…to know you can judge bad weather and resist the temptation to fly it anyway.

And even if you cant fly,…you’re still out there feasting your eyes and soul on an epic view.

But I’m not a kid short on toys and the R1150 is always game…..and all weather is good GS weather.  And there was lots of riding to be had.

One afternoon…contrary to the weather report,..the wind died and the sun peaked through.  I couldn’t believe it,..the predicted storm had just slipped around us by a kilometer and was now setting conditions for a beautiful calm evening.  It was go time!  By now I knew the tracks,…so it was a mad dash in to make the summit before it got dark.

There’s such an exhilaration of arriving on a launch and realizing its really going to happen.  A lot has to come together..and it did!  Wind direction, wind speed, good launch site…everything was perfect for stepping into the sky.  In these circumstances you feel extremely lucky…as you should!

I was expecting a steady descent down to the beach…hoping to scratch a few scraps of lift here and there in route.  However…searching along the north face I scored a nice stable lift band that took me above launch.

I cant begin to describe how good it feels to soar with the vastness of the Australian coast line spreading out below you…. Its so personal…only you and the sky,…. It’s a VIP club reserved for angels and free flight pilots.

I worked the lift band for while, feeling out the north side of the mountain,..then I got ambitious and tried to trace the mountain back to its highest point..in hopes of topping out over the summit.  It wasn’t long before I got caught up in sink and lost the lift band and had to break away from the mountain.

Its never incognito once you pull a 10 meter orange sail out of a bag and step into the sky.  Everyone can see.   There were no tourist in the park at this time year,..however, I had watched a few road workers off in the distance gather to observe from below….and then I saw a pickup top out over a hill way down below…yep..the ranger is here!   I didn’t know exactly what his reaction was going to be…but I had an idea.  One thing about park rangers is that they know their environment…you cant out run em,..especially in a big orange glider.  No matter where I landed I’d be having a chat with him,..so I figured I’d go down say hello.  I touched down a few feet from his truck, unhooked and stepped over to introduce myself.

He was a pretty cool dude just doing his job.  But, apparently I was in a bit of trouble. The ranger said they were protecting a certain sacred scrub up on the mountain…he said if pilots started flying there it would destroy the vegetation. I didn’t ask this,…but I was thinking- right…you put a trail to the top and allow several thousand people to climb to the top each year. If he legalized free flight,…3 people out of 3,000 would be pilots…suggesting to me that we pilots have extremely low impact on the environment in comparison to the rest of the mob dancing all over the top…and we don’t walk down..thats half the impact J!  To his credit though,…I cant argue much, as you can see in the picture I did fly down with a twig caught up in my wing from the launch area.

He also questioned me on bypassing closed tracks and one beach campfire…. As one of the extreme few folks in the park…its easy to recognize my motorbike tracks. Guilty, guilty guilty,..I’d been having quite a ball out there without realizing I was stiring up some trouble.  Its like I was the elusive prey he’d been tracking for days…and now was his triumphant moment as he made the killing shot with a ferocious gaze of disapproval and a lethal dose of finger shaking.

I had one thing going for me,…aside from apologizing profusely to the ranger,..I’d been a low impact camper,..no sign of trash,..all I left was my tread tracks,..and the cold buried coals from a campfire (I accidentally got my sleeping bag wet that night and woke up extremely cold at 4am….so I built a raging bonfire on the beach to warm up).  As the ranger had taken some time in checking out my campsites (digging up the buried coals), he recognized that there was no trash and I’d been doing my best to be a low impact camper.

I almost wish he had been an ass..it would make for a more interesting story,..but the fact is that he was professional and was just putting me in my place, which I technically deserved.  He took my name and address….and didn’t mention any fines..so I think as long as I stay out of any further trouble…I wont get any heat.   Ignorance of the law is not an excuse(except maybe when it involves airspace I might tread into a grey area with paragliding, but for the most part I do my best to respect local laws and customs as a guest in a host country.  So I rode 10 miles beyond the park boundary…found a great campsite and made a massive bonfire, and sipped on a cold beer to celebrate my first and last flight of East Mt Barren.

And, all of you will be able to sleep peacefully tonight knowing that the wonder scrub on East Mt Barren is forever safe from the notorious yank pilot and his flying flower killing apparatus.