Day 3 (Brett)

A tough day at the office today for the Kiwi camp. It started badly for Steve with him discovering his airspace file in his LX9000 was missing a step down in airspace which he unfortunately touched, losing him most of his points for the day before.
The weather man told of a high probability of thunderstorms and a short thermal day peaking between 1 and 3pm, setting the 18m class a short 2 hour AAT. The inference was clear - get going early and get home before the day dies or you get caught out. After launching everybody was playing start games in the haze at cloudbase. It was very busy in there so when 2pm passed I got going, aiming to the far side of the first circle with the intention of joing a gaggle as I exited the area. The cu's looked OK but most were just "water bags" and the thermals when you found them were bubbles - sometimes good lift for a few hundred feet, then gone. So I drove it into turf crossing a blue hole where the stepping stone cumulus were empty promises.
The rest of the class started 1 hour later in improving skies with no hint of thunderstorms and had a relatively easy, if slowish run.
I have never had such a warm greeting on landing out. It was way out in the sticks and I was something of a celebrity. There was a group of between 10 and 20 members of various local families following me about, their phones and cameras going overtime.

High tea at the Clampetts

It was made clear to me that the two girls on the outside required husbands ....

So an interesting, if disappointing day. We got to see a lot of Polish countryside on the 6 hour retrieve and Barbara, Nigel & I had a nice dinner in a quaint little restaurant in a town on the way back.