Hi All

Well I'm puting in some good time here at the Rps30/$1 an hour internet place trying to catch up before we leave for Darjeeling tomorrow at 6am. The next place may be as expensive as the hotel the other night where the first 15 minutes cost Rps100.

January 29th, Tuesday. After the "Great Day Out" in Melbourne I caught the train, then bus to Bright about 4 hours North East of Melbourne. It is a ski place in the Winter and is the 5th most visted place in Oz. I could only stay the one night as I was pressed for time. I just missed the annual HG/PG competition they had. I bumped into a British PG pilot that gave me the skinny on the comp. and the site. There were 70 pilots and a number from overseas. He also told me of a great inland site where he just got his personal best in a PG of 140Km. Just 5 hours outside of Sydney. Next time. Well the local guy didn't have a glider big enough for me and so I didn't fly again. Next morning I got up at 5am and returned to Melbourne.

On the way to Bright I had a couple of hours in a town called Wangaratta. I new I was looking at 1.5 day trip to Brisbane, so decided to see how much a flight would cost. Just my luck. Virgin airlines had just started a domestic airline in Australia called Virgin Blue. I could get a one way flight from Melbourne to Brisbane for $120 Canadian. There was no question it was a deal I couldn't refuse. The girl that booked my flight explained where to go in the airport since Virgin had it's own mini terminal. Strange, because afterwards she told me she had never been on a plane in her life, but new the airport.

Got to Brisbane that day and made my way to Jen's place. She is doing her masters in Bio-Molecular chemistry at the University of Brisbane and lives about 5 minutes from her office. She lives with 4 other room mates and quite the cast of characters they are. The place has no AC so it was a little humid. The daily temperatures got to about 32-33c. I Spent the next 4 days relaxing, meeting people, pubing and went to "Surfers Paradise beach" for the biggest waves I've ever attempted to body surf. When we got off the bus at the beach two guys were running at break neck speed down the road. Initially I thought they were to guys goofing around until I heard the second guy yelling "drop it,drop it" and I could see a security guard also running behind the second guy. By then it was too late for a tackle and a hero for the day.

Saw all sorts of animals including a possum who came to visit us on the front porch. The best story was when I nearly did a face plant into a spider and his web right where he was sitting. He had spun a web right across a path on campus and I didn't notice it. Biggest spider I've ever seen. The last night at Jen's place I was awoke buy a Possum in the back yard. But for some reason it sounded like it was in my room when I awoke. I got the willies and got it into my head it was a hunter spider crawling around the room. I got up and checked the whole room before I realized it was from outside.

Monday, the 4th I left for Sydney, on Virgin Blue, to Paloma and Pauls place hoping I might be able to get some flying in at a place just South of the city. No Luck. That evening I arrived in torrential downpours. I overheard that other peoples flights had to circle for some time. I knew something was not right when we were coming in and top of cloud base looked like something I've never seen before with huge ridge swirls. Our descent last about 20 minutes through thick bumpy cloud. We only broke through at about 1,000 feet and I thought we were pretty low. The rain was so bad that Phil, in India at the time, heard about it on the news.

I met Paloma's parents the next day. They were there for a visit. Relaxed and sent out parcels and email. The next day I caught my flight to Delhi, a gruelling 15 hours with a 3 hour stopover in Singapore.

Well that was the end of the Oz trip. Not a single minute of Hang Gliding. But My harness did get to see Australia.

Martin