Friendship Flight 2010: Morning Glory: Burketown Day 1

It was an early start this morning – even earlier than I expected thanks to my too-smart-for-it’s-own-good-phone. It decided to set itself to daylight savings. Only there is no daylight savings here in Queensland. So instead of waking up at 4am, I woke up at 3am. I feel jet-lagged.

It was still dark when we got to the airport. There are half a dozen or so gliders here. Some people had arrived earlier and were already lining up for a first light departure. There was excitement in the air as the wind picked up and someone mentioned a few ‘dry glories’ going through, meaning a Morning Glory system with no cloud.

Paul, an experienced Morning Glory pilot from Byron Bay had kindly agreed to come with me today to give me a bit of a tour of the key landmarks and tips on what to look out for. Whatever had been going on with the ‘dry Glories’ was gone, but we did have an absolute magic flight in the still morning air. My apologies for forgetting the Spot. I forgot about it in the early morning excitement. I realised when we got airborne but it was at the bottom of my bag and I just could not get to it without dislocating my shoulder, which I nearly did!

We were back on the ground before 7.30am. We spent the rest of the morning touring around Burketown in the Lodge courtesy car before coming back for a much needed afternoon nap. The new routine might take me a while to get used to, but I think I can handle it!