nice flying

A nice long flight today - my longest yet, in fact (duration, that is).
Nothing spectacular distance or height or scenery wise, but it had it's moments. I went to Clearspot, Mystic, Clearspot, half-way to Blackfellas, Clearspot, Little Buffalo, Clearspot, Mystic, Goldmine, down Reliance Ridge, Mt Ebaneazer, back to Goldmine, Pyramid, over the landing paddock and top-landed at Mystic.
Some of the memorable moments were:

-Nearly bombing out on Little Buffalo - I had plenty of height when I arrived, but there was a headwind there and I couldn't find any lift. In fact, I was in 2-4m/s of sink as I dropped down the side of the hill, really hoping I could stretch my glide to land at the Porepunkah airfield, and got a low save off the orchards in that little valley there.

-My second ever frontal collapse on this wing (I think) - I find the AspenII to be very collapse resistant, but when it does go it's usually quite soft and this was no exception. The wing dropped back evenly, we both dropped down evenly, and it snapped back evenly. No drama, just an indication that there were some sharp little pockets of air around.

-Late in the day, drifting into a slow-climb-thermalling daze near Mt Ebaneazer - it was so pleasant up above 2,000m, wide smooth lift.... slowly turning towards the sun, away from the sun, towards the sun, away from the sun... lying back in the harness watching the wing, flying by the relaxing beep, beep, beep of the vario...
After some time the wing snapped on one side a little and I suddenly I realised I didn't know how long it had been since I'd last checked my position (I don't think I had my eyes closed - but the vario noise was pretty hypnotic!) and I might have drifted deep over some inhospitable back valley and sat up in a mild panic - but it was all ok, I was still over the same hill, still not quite at cloudbase, the late afternoon sun was making all the shadows in the valley grow longer and longer and it was probably time to start heading back to the landing paddock.

I diverted to Pyramid on the way and the air was so nice that despite a slight headwind and no climb on Little Mystic I made it back to the launch and toplanded - a perfect end to 4.8hrs in the air!!