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The plan for the weekend was to head to Mt. Cook with Jana and Julian and get some climbing done. Unfortunately there was a Big Swirly Orange thing heading up from the South West.. which are, of course, to be avoided at all costs.

So instead I went paragliding with Dave. Thems the breaks I guess.. Friday night headed out for beers to the Dux.. while I was slagged half way through the night for moving off beer and onto Lemon Lime and bitters (really is a nice drink)… I was quite thankful for it the next day as I wasn’t flying with a hangover :)

Spent about an hour in a field – possibly less – learning how to run forward with the glider, bring it up over your head, and control it a little. Then it was straight off to Taylors Mistake to fly. No tandem intro.. oh no.. straight into it. So the first two flights you start off 80m above the ground..

It’s definitely odd running off a mountain. Something I’ve never done without having a rope attached before! But it’s so much fun. So much. At the time, I will admit, I was – just a tiny bit apprehensive (in a Manly Way of course ;) however, we had perfect learning conditions so it was ok.

We then decided to do 3 extra flights – to work towards PG 1. Once you have this cert (standard around the world) you can fly solo at any site – under radio supervision. If you continue on to PG2 you can fly solo anywhere. It costs $550 to get PG1.. that means you get your training and 10 solo flights.. quite cheap I believe… anyway, that’s what we’re going to do.

So yes, 3 extra flights.. only this time it was from 280m up (end up having about 2 mins in the air). Here’s a pic of dave at the top.. we fly down to sea level..

It was fun, (I can say that now ;) Dave was a much more natural flyer than me, though I think that’s prob ‘cos he was still hungover and didn’t have any fear ;) hehehe (joking joking). I must admit though, I’ve found it a little hard to stop thinking about the next flight. Which I think has to be a good sign. This next pic of me coming in to land..

The rest of the weekend – well quite lazy really. I’ve been slightly geeky of late, and been playing (just finished) Half Life 2. It’s such an excellent game – mainly because it incorporates realistic physics into the play. There’s an excellent weapon – called the Gravity gun.. and with it you can pull objects towards you and fire them around (or stack them up to climb over obstacles – or smash through windows (and have the glass shatter the way it should..) really – it’s simply fantastic. The physics engine was mostly designed by a company called Havok. I did apply to work there after college.. Unfortunately at the time they weren’t hiring.. otherwise obviously I’d have been employed.. (not). It’s a great company though – based in Dublin.. my friend Graham works for them. As a part of working there you get free extreme sports insurance.. how cool is that?!

And then on Sunday it was Glynns bday. Ancient now he is. Then climbing in the avo – just a few short routes.

I also started my application process for residency..