Rough riding in the Kiewa Valley

Driving up to Bright, the wind-talker on ch21 was reporting light Northerlies and there were cumulus clouds popping off all over the sky – woohoo! I launched around 12:30 straight into a nice climb off Marcus. Nine minutes of thermalling later I was approaching cloudbase at 1,700m.
A high pressure system had been hanging around for a few days but the sun was hot and the night was cold so the thermals were punching up through the stable air, however the thermals were narrow and tended to feel quite strong.

To get a bit more of a feel for the day I headed over to Clearspot (very boyant crossing) and turned a few circles under the cloud there to take me back to base (around 1,800m here) before flying towards Blackfellas. However the sink was pretty strong, the cloud I was heading for started to dissipate, and it was up-wind, so I turned around, topped up my height at Clearspot and headed back towards Mystic. There were some gliders climbing out from launch which marked the lift nicely so I flew over, circled five or six times in the lift (back to cloudbase!) and kept going over to Goldmine. The crossing was a bit sinkey and although I found lift over Goldmine it wasn't very well formed until I widened my search around 1,600m and found a nice core to circle in while climbing back to my favorite place – where the climb meets the clouds!

The next good trigger point, Pyramid, had been basking in the sun for a few minutes by the time I was ready to leave Goldmine and as I approached the sunny side of the center peak I was expecting a good climb. I wasn't disappointed...

The wing pitched forwards and we were ripped upwards as the vario started going crazy. One moment the speed of the climb was squashing me down in the harness, the next I was going nearly weightless as the ground dropped away beneath me. I had the left brake buried to try and stay in the core but it didn't feel like it was doing much – the violence of the movement of the air was what was spinning me around as I was hurled upwards. Heart rate maxed, check that surge, quick stab on the outside brake to pump out the tip, brakes all up we're going uuuupppp, pressure off whack the inside brake on again and two minutes later I was tipping the clouds at 2,000m after one of the wilder rides under a paraglider. I've thermalled at higher climb rates before, I've thermalled much higher from much lower - but measured in terms of power and adrenaline this was definitely the thermal of the season for me!!

There were good clouds around so I took a slightly deeper course line over the Tawonga Gap and was rewarded with a pretty easy crossing. Near the end I hit more sink but found a light climb just before flying over the final ridgeline. There was some sort of shear line around 1,600m and the thermal drifted in a different direction after that but it took me back up cloudbase. There was a line of clouds running North for the next 6-7kms so just flew along under them, diverting towards the darker patches when I needed an altitude top-up. Arriving at the edge of them I had a choice of following them NW over tiger country towards Mt Porepunkah, straight ahead over a ridgeline with no good clouds, or NE out over the valley.

I chose to continue flying North, trusting that I'd come across a thermal lifting off from the ridgetop. I flew over a couple of likely looking trigger points without getting much of a twitch and by then was getting close to the trees when I flew through active air near the next good point I searched around and got slammed around by violent little bullets of lift that were to small to get much of a turn in. I was getting height out of them – but it was pretty rough at times (I looked up once and saw a fold in the back of the wing as the leading edge was bent back). Eventually two air masses traveling in opposite directions whacked one side of the wing under but with a counter-whack on the brakes and a bit of fall-and-spin it came out pretty quick (in retrospect I think I was in the lee of the thermal core and the ridge which explains the roughness...).

As soon as I had a bit of height I left the ridge and headed out into the valley. Half way across I spent a while circling and drifting in a really light climb but after this died and I flew to the other side of the valley I didn't find another good thermal. I spent a while surfing bubbles rising above a hill but nothing that I could really work came through so I ended up flying back over the river to land in a convenient paddock near the main road. I great flight, a bit wild at times and I would really have liked to connect with a climb on the N side of the Kiewa Valley, but I'm pleased that I only took one real collapse and it was just great to have such nice clouds to fly. Woohoo!