On like a train...

The short version of a weeks camping at Manilla.

Nath & I arrived at Mt Borah Monday afternoon and setup the tent in moderate NNW winds (blowing along the mountain, unsuitable flying conditions)
Tuesday: windy
Wednesday: windy mostly, as it dropped off in the evening we got 45-50min ridge-soaring on the West face. Nice to be back in the air.
Thursday: Light winds, overcast, some light rain in the morning. We joined the students for some sleddies, then around lunchtime the sun started to burn through the cloudlayer and soon afterwards some cumulous clouds started to form above the range. Nath turned a sleddie into a great 15min low level scratching flight and came back up the hill as I set up. He launched first and quickly climbed out, I followed but had to search for a while and lost the first climb at around 1,000m. Nath headed off down the range towards Manilla while I flew around looking for another climb. Eventually I found a weak one but was not able to stay with it much above 900m. More searching, finally got the wing stuck into a climb that took me to around 1,400m. Low, but I headed off after Nath. Got another climb at a likely trigger point but lost sight of nath somewhere around here (He flew out West and got decked by lots of sink). I continued down the ridge, scooting along just under cloudbase, went on glide to Manilla, climbed back up to base just before the town and then again on the other side of it. Here I chose to go more south than SE, which was a mistake as I was flying crosswind and only connected with on more climb. I think if I'd been willing to fly over the back of a hill I woulda got another climb (but bombing out there woulda involved LOTS of walking). I ended up landing 25km straight line from Mt Borah, 31km optimised. Hitched into town, where Nath picked me up, and raced up the hill in time to see a student take of and fly out from the hill for about a km, climbing all the way out!! Godfrey said it was "on like a train" and we sould launch as soon as possible so we quickly setup. I launched first, swooping up from the launch and then straight down, 3m/s sink, all the way to the ground. Nath followed about 5min later with similiar results. After walking halfway back up the hill we got a lift and that evening both did a couple of 1min flights in conditions so light that we only just made it back on launch.
Friday: windy, we packed up & left around 3pm, got back to the farm at 3:30am.