Deniliquin, NSW, Australia
I saw the first bushfires while driving down from Manilla to Sydney, huge amounts of smoke covering the sky like fog. I spent Chrismas in Sydney, picking up Gordon and some of the Swiss at the airport. After a few relaxing days at the beach we drove to Deniliquin, we did get through the fires that were spreading around Sydney without any closed roads. It was raining ashes at Bill and Molly’s place at the beach when we had a barbeque the last night, and the air smelled of smoke.

We have spent a few days getting the towing gear sorted, it went quite well once everything is in place. We are 9 people towing in our team, 1 Australian, 2 swiss, 1 American, 4 Brits, and me. Yesterday I did 2 tows and just flew around over the paddock for about 4 hours. Good conditions, with blue thermals to 2300 at the end of the day, glass-off just before I landed with smooth big thermals all over, hard to get down. The glider feels good, and now that I had other to fly with it seems to perform pretty well.

Today was the first comp day, it got cancelled bacause of high winds. We have a front moving through the area, It does not look good for tomorrow, but the day after should be good.

There’s only one computer available for internet use at a gas station in this town, so I won’t be updating everyday, there’s a long line of people waiting to use it…