After my first paragliding competition in North Macedonia in August, I signed up to the South Africa Pre-PWC/Porterville Open, at Porterville in South Africa. This was to form the first part of my extended holiday between jobs. I arrived on the Wednesday before the competition, with the aim of having a few days of flying before the competition to familiarise myself with the area. However unfortunately the conditions were not that good, as I arrived too late to fly on the Wednesday, and was too tired anyway. On the Thursday I did a short flight back to the lodge, however I was still feeling the effects of the travel and was quite airsick, hence the short flight. The Friday was a non-flying day, see wine and lions, so all that was left was the flight on Saturday. Saturday was a strange day, as it was the practice day for the competition, but there was no official task and no retrieve, and until the morning we did not even know there was an official lift up to launch. As the XC conditions looked good, a friend and I decided to hire. Read the full article…
