Bright Open - Day 5

We flew today - task 2 - and it all went pretty well. No one hurt, 4 in goal (that I've heard of). I didn't make it to goal, I couldn't punch through the wind from Mystic towards the second last turnpoint.
The course was: Start - Goldmine, TP1 - Smoko Ridge, TP2 - Blackfellas Peak, TP3 - Little Mystic, TP4 - Porpunkuh Bridge, TP4 - Little Mystic, Goal - Mystic LP. Total distance - 51.7km.

Things I think I did right:
- Didn't launch straight away. It was a good thing to put off the stress of the gaggle for an extra 30min.
- Was near the down-task edge of the start cylinder at the start time.
- Took a pretty direct route to Little Mystic - that saved heaps of time.

Things I didn't do so well:
- Thermal with the gaggles - especially when the air's a bit rough I'm just not used to having lots of glider around me. I like to move around in the thermal and look for stronger cores and it frustrates me to try and circle at diameter of the least efficient climber....
- I should have pushed harder earlier on stay with a faster gaggle instead of circling in a weak climb and getting stuck with a slow gaggle for ages.
- I should have headed direct towards the Porepunkah bridge intead of flying through Mystic - I'd heard that people were getting stuck there and could see them there so I should have avoided it and tried for Apex or at least a glide up the center of the valley.
- Stayed in the strong lift over Mystic when the gaggle joined it instead of leaving (? assuming it would have been safe....)
- Used my height from Mystic to get as far along the course as possible, rather than flying back to land at the Mystic LP.

But all in all it was a good day of flying!

Here's a pic of the field shortly after the start.