Just a
not to short recount of a flying session I had on the weekend.
I was booked to shoot some band/music work at a big music festival located on a property in central Victoria, it's a 4 day 'camping' style event with about 10,000+ revelers. Back in the day I would have been more than excited to attend, but I'm old now
and like my sleep way to much. So the idea of throwing a few kites in the 'essentials' pile was a no brainer, a very good reason to get away from the madness of a music festival.
I'd never been to this particular event site and on arrival I was confronted with a long valley with quite step and tall hills, and the festival was located at the head of it, not an ideal kite flying environment
Weather wise, on arrival the wind was up around 40-80 Km/h, (not making setting a tent up much fun
)
The next day was a write off wind wise also, although I did get one up for about 30mins (The Aerobe/Wala)
But Sunday morning was the pick of the days and I got to put the Talon up for a glorious 40+ minutes of flying, Not only did the wind stay reasonably steady for that time but I was not making many mistakes for a change, there was definitely some good flow going on, I think I only had to walk about 3 times
Well that's all well and good, so I went to a festival in the country and flew a kite, sooooo whats the wingspan bit about?
About 30 mins in I noticed a very small speck in the sky above my kite (I must say I've noticed a lot of high flying migratory bird flight since getting into this kite flying caper) so small that I couldn't have guaranteed it was a bird, but over the next couple of mins it became clearer and clearer, becoming about 5m above my kite clearer
.
There, circling above my Talon was a
Wedge Tailed Eagle, she appeared to be a smidgen bigger than my Talon (and by guesstimate, a s#!t load heavier) and I don't need to mention, has real
talons. Now at this time sure I could have parked it, but I was transfixed at the sight of her, and also, maybe just a little curious...
We ended up flying together for about 3 minutes, just sort of big looping around, every now and then I'd put a sharp square or a little cascade in, just to keep her guessing a little
.
Well after a little while she must have decided that we were in the 'curious, but not worth pursuing' category and not worth giving the famous 'Let me show you how my talons are tougher than your Talon', and gave a leisurely bank on the wind, caught a thermal and was off out and of sight in a flash.
So as I watch her soar off into the distance I figure it's not going to get much better than that and decide to call it a day, so I turn the kite for a dive from the top of the window and trust my luck one more time.... 'Flic flic step' and a nice little snap stall landing to punctuate the experience....
So I turned around and there along the fence line I saw about 5000 people who had be watching and then they burst into a chant....NO, WAIT!!! that's not how it went, I was having a 'another famous Australian kiteflyer' moment.
Actually given that there were 10000+ people there, I bet less than 4 actually saw it... But given I was one of them I'll count myself lucky...
Anyway enough rambling....
Regards,
W
'living the dream' D
