Robin's report understated the weather and the general flying conditions.
No one was keen to start until approx 2pm as a result of the rather dreary blip map predictions. Consequently we sat around drinking tea & coffee for some time before a pre arranged joyrider turned up for Gerhard and giving us cause to stir into some sort of activity.
Gerhard launched a little after midday and after staying airborne for nearly 30 min, Jay & Robin decided to advance their launches and took off at 12.45.
Geoff Neely and I followed about a half hour later. By that time Robin & Jay were approaching Barraba and reporting climbs to 6000'.
After a close look at Gainey's airstrip from low altitude, I found a 5kt climb to cloud base at 6500'. Geoff decided to head north but as the area to the east of Manilla looked "interesting', I headed off in that direction. The conditions improved and east of Manilla I found several climbs of 7kts and cloud base was 8000' in parts. I travelled up along the Halls Creek valley towards Bendemeer for about 50km before heading back to Split Rock Dam.
In the mean time Jay & Robin made it to Mt Kaputar and were heading back to Split Rock Dam. Geoff went to Barraba and then off to Gunnedah.
We all thought that we were doing well when Bruce Taylor joined us on the radio to advise that he was over Lake Keepit at 6500' after leaving Kentucky and flying South to Murrurundi then back north to Keepit and was then on his way to Guyra! His comment was "not too bad for a May day?".
Jay later reported that at one point, he had achieved 10kts on his averager in one thermal. He and Robin easily completed 220km.
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