03 November 2016

Best friends forever!

Since we met in Canungra for the first time many years ago, Tascha and I have been closest friends. We are very different, but also very open and tolerant for each others´ worlds. Together we went flying in many beautiful places on several continents and enjoyed great travels - in Europe, my parents adopted her, while I felt very much adopted by her parents in New Zealand.  I could not imagine a more loyal friend than Tascha - we supported each other through one or the other dark time in our lives, even though we couldn´t possibly live further apart.
Whenever I see a chance on a trip to Australia, I try to stop over in Christchurch for a few days to see her and her beautiful family. This time we got extra lucky - after a long period of rain in New Zealand, we had been surprised with two magnificent flying days!
Tascha took me to the dunes of Brighton Beach and helped me with base barring the Sonic into the air, top landing like a seagull on the small sand hills, and taking off again. Concentration every second of the flight, as the wind was howling with about 40km/h - every mistake would get punished! But we did well, had fun and learnt a lot! Thanks to the Sydney northern beaches guys who had been training me for two years now, I was quite confident and did a long flight up to the pier and back, racing along the dunes close to the ground.
The next day, first I accompanied Tascha to Rangiora airfield where she takes flying lessons on a Jabiru to get her motorized license. After that she took me to Taylor´s take off, setting up the Sonic and her little Litespeed 3 between a cute flock of sheep, just to remind me where I was I guess :) I had not brought any of my flying equipment over, so Tascha happily gave me everything, her harness, helmet and glider to fly!
We met Jean, a paraglider pilot and the Taylor´s site instructor, on take off. The wind was too strong for him to fly, but he seemed delighted to see two girls setting up their hang gliders and getting off into the air in no time! So nice to have some help shifting the gliders around in windy conditions, big thanks to Jean! And this air was silky smooth compared to the rough, bumpy stuff on the dunes that we had been battling the day before.
I kept buzzing around Tish for a while, as the cute Litesport was faster and more movable than her Sonic. After a while we landed at Scarborough park beach, happy and full of joy that we are allowed to just enjoy flying and life together in a happy moment like this!