Southeast Queensland and the NSW border ranges

Looking back to Lamington and Border ranges national parks

Ten years after learning to fly in Canungra and I’ve come back to the nest. Lately I’ve been spoilt by mountain flying and exploring new places, and I’ve turned my nose up at flying the same tired old sites over a rather flat country. But having a fresh look at the map, I’ve realised there is some interesting country around, and living in Sydney it is very accessible for me to nip up for a few days here and there between shifts. See the 8 minute video, triangle flight on xcontest, doarama

After a great three day visit less than a fortnight earlier, I decided to try my luck again, booking flights the evening before. The next morning I was among a dozen or so paraglider pilots on Mt Tambourine launch, but only the hangies were flying – winds were stronger than expected. In my mind the logical thing to do was to change the plan to a hike and fly of the Fort, but the others needed some convincing! In the end five of us made the trek.

Andy and Jim

Andy, the Fort

Looking south across Christmas creek

It glassed off beautifully and we watched the smoky sunset (see more photos here). Then I hitched a ride to Beechmont to try my luck with the southerly change the next morning. It was windy alright – but I could fly – and later the day changed. Making it up as I went, I started to attempt a triangle but got flushed half way. Landing on a remote road a surprised couple stopped for me. They were very interested in having a chat, which was nice. In Woodenbong I spared myself some time for fish and chips and a beer.

Fish and chips in Woodenbong

Standing in the setting sun outside Woodenbong I realised there wasn’t a lot of traffic, and wondered if I’d been a bit brash with my relaxed hitching style. But within half an hour a 63 year old local fella said he was going to Nerang – perfect! Lee had an in depth knowledge of the surrounding countryside and it was another interesting chat. Andrew my friend who has recently set up The Odd Gecko bed and breakfast put me up for the night in Canungra, and dropped me at Beechmont the next morning.

Beechmont and the Numinbah valley – no friends on days like this

The night before I’d planned out the most inspirational flight I could think of – an early morning run down the Numinbah valley along the Mt Warning caldera, then cutting west to make a 100km triangle – with Andy my lift back to Brisbane saying I’d need to be back at the car by 4:15pm at the absolute latest. He was still driving down so I took off first – and nearly bombed – but just hung in there, and things got much better.

Looking back toward Lamington NP from NSW

Christmas creek from the caldera

Mt Warning from the caldera

A long story short and I made it back, Andy had a great flight as well (see our doarama tracks in 3d here), and we were both able to get home, just in time!

Tracks for the weekend – click for 100km triangle (xcontest)

An old airspace map, handy for navigation

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less than 24 hours ahead of time I’ve
booked flights up from Sydney for a long

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weekend of flying in between shifts
I learned here in the Canungra area

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ten years ago, and talk of great flying
over winter and early spring plus some

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good flights I had just over a week before
had enticed me to make another visit

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originally we went to Mount Tamborine
but it was too windy so I talked the

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guys into going for a hike and fly
This site is amazing and doesn’t get flown enough

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the locals are friendly, the
takeoff is perfect, and it’s gorgeous country

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what a spot

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what were we worried about?

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oh mate, how good is it

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do you reckon this is better than Tambo?

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afternoon James

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that evening I got a lift back to Beechmont
where I spent the night on launch

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I hope this guy is on his own
(doesn’t have any friends)

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this wedgie was getting chased by a couple of magpies this morning

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there’s two here

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it was blowing 20 knots
so not ideal, I had to keep the

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speed bar handy on launch and I cruised
around for over an hour just waiting to

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get high enough to zip down over the back

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the idea is to get off here early, and then get to Hinchcliff where it’s not so windy

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this is the highest I’ve got so far 850 meters

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and a lot of time I’ve been sitting around with nil ground speed on trim

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sometimes going forwards, sometimes going backwards

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I’m finally going on glide I got 60km/h

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slightly crosswind

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probably going to be some rotor on the other side of this
but I don’t think it will be too bad

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can’t see myself making it to Hinchcliff
but I’ll possibly make it to the bombout

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here we are at the Hinchcliff bombout

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I’m on my way up Hinchies now
the sky is starting to look really good

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yeah look, I thought there’s probably
some convergence going on, but

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you’re so low you only get one chance really

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so I was reluctant – no sun

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most of the time since launching I’ve
been in a very light climb

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and after I’ve taken off, launch has actually come into sun

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so that’s Gordo’s
Matt is sort of, I saw him

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roughly in front of me at a similar
height on glide down that way before and

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still got a fair way to go to base and I
guess this is a second climb really, like

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Hinchcliff is dead ahead there, it’s fully in sun now

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in hindsight I’m glad I got off when I did because it worked

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you would be able to see Mt Warning,
you can pretty much

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see it but it’s very murky today

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this is fantastic, we’ve got Lamington National Park

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and it’s pretty lifty through here as you might imagine

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you can see how much lower the
cloud is on the east of the caldera and

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and you can see the Fort
where we had a gorgeous flight last night

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I’m getting 54km/h ground speed on trim, believe it or not

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it’s supposed to be southerly

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could try and do “around the world”
but which way around do I go

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or I could just go along the border ranges

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pretty nice scenery

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Mat is with me now

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oh it’s just awesome this view, I took a few selfies before

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yeah I’m pretty busy with
the camera today, and just had a muesli bar

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went down well, yeah looking good

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you can just make out Mt Barney over there

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Mt Lindesay, I think I’m going to follow these clouds
and then shoot back into NSW, towards Kyogle

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great day

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I was going to go for these ones some nice terrain and
some clouds that way but

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this cloud looks even better and Wow look at this…
so yeah let’s go

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feeling a bit hard done by

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had some great clouds here when I left Lindesay

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they all just dissipated as I was on my way over

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Numinbah [valley].. pretty cool, I have never been this far

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I just executed an inflight pee, it all went very smoothly

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it could possibly be on the chase cam, because I was peeing for quite a while

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the damage is just a few drops they’re almost gone

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well the birds singing, and
so am I if I can get up here and get over

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to the Fort. What an awesome day of flying so far
it’s not even midday!

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getting a little stuck here, northern side of the Fort,
but gradually getting up

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it’s coming up the face, but,
just in between cycles I guess

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yeah I just had a bit of a scratch around on the northern side of the Fort

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I’m feeling a bit confident now, that I
might make it back to Beechmont

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Oh struggle to end / I’ve landed down the
bottom but I got down first go

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without any mucking around / Phil’s got one of his students out here

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went all the way down there

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Oh super happy awesome stuff

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before 3pm and I’m
already on the road in Andy’s car

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to give him a retrieve,
going to Beaudesert going to meet him there

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we’re running pretty good for time
Andy should be here in about 15 minutes

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I ordered burgers for us, now into this classy establishment

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to see if I can get a beer

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so where we going Andy? /
Oh, just going

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back to Brisbane to pick up my daughter
from kindy and we’re going to make it

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with about half an hour /
fifteen minutes to spare but

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two hours ago I was in the woods near Kyogle
and Nick was still in the air

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on his third leg of the triangle to get
back to the car

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Andy gave me a call and said, are you going to fly back
to the car and drive over to pick me up?

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and I’m like, well I’m going to have to
because I’ve got to get back to the airport tonight

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it’s just another one of those
ideas and I regret saying (out loud)

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just cruising home and we see Phil Hystek on the highway – look at him go!