My first coast trip

[slartibartfast]

Just a little sharing:

 

Yesterday I went to Cooma primarily to get my pax endorsement. I had also planned to take my 19yo son to the coast afterwards (presuming I passed), but he chickened out. It was a beautiful day for flying west of the coastal ranges, but a lot of cloud to the east, so I was looking for somewhere else to go. I went back to town to get a late breakfast, and while I was gone, the ever-helpful Adrian went for a reccy to check the coast for me. When I came back he announced that he thought it was doable, so off I went.

 

Had planned to track to Moruya, but the view from 7500' told me the north was closed for the day. Due east to Bermagui and south of there looked much better, so Bermagui it was. Once there and descended to 1500', I discovered the base was 2500' and clear below that, so I tracked north to Moruya for a peek, then headed south to Merimbula. Southwards I mainly held 2500' (the base was higher and BKN in the south) because my track was slightly west of south, but I did do the mandatory descent to 500' on a quiet stretch of beach. What a buzz!

 

On arrival at Merimbula, I joined my first ever right-hand circuit for 03 and had a stretch on the ground. Then off again, gaining height to the east of the a/f over the ocean before tracking 295 back to Cooma and climbing to 8500' (there's a lot of tiger country on the way).

 

The views along the coast are simply spectacular and I had an amazing flight. This is what it's all about. Unfortunately, I can't share any photos with you because we were broken into last week and they took all our cameras, among other things. They emptied out my flight bag and got that camera, but luckily didn't take my Bose X headset. I guess they didn't know what it was worth.

 

Total trip time was 3.1 hours with the best maintained Jab LSA 55 in the country only using 30 litres. Pretty economical.

 

I'm still buzzing over my first real XC (where I got to decide where to go), so I hope you don't mind me sharing with words only. I guess if you did, you wouldn't have read this far. In fact this whole paragraph is probably redundant. Where's that delete key? Ahh bugger it.

 

Ross

 

 

[Guest David C]

Ross ,

 

Good report mate ;).. I always enjoy reading trip reports . I hope your XC goes well and you keep enjoying your flying . Looking forward to your next XC report . Sorry to hear of your theft . I hope the thieves are found and dealt with . It was a low act .