Flying the Grey

[Free to Adventure]

Never mind flying the blue, we have had two more days of extreme weather on our return trip back to South Africa. It reminds me of a saying that once you have climbed a mountain you are only half way there and boy does it feel like we have been climbing a mountain.

The main challenge has been trying to find our way over the constant 30 knot head wind that has now been blowing for almost a week, All started well this morning as we climbed to 8000 foot to find a favourable tail wind and minus temperatures.

But about a hour into the flight large clouds started forming and at 12000 foot we could still
not get over them and were forced to decend under with the cloud going almost to the surface with
tons of rain pounding down.

We diverted from our track and headed towards Tupoi, a mining town on the coast for a precautionary
landing. This is where the universe stepped in and we were greeted by some friendly Afrikaans voices
who promptly refueled us and fed us large hamburgers free of charge before sending us on our way. Big Big thanks to Dick Scott, Coenraad and Tom, without your support we would not have made it to Quelimaine this evening.

As usual we attracted a large crowd on landing at the mine and as we started getting dressed with our many layers of clothes they all birst into laughter each time we added another layer, I dont think the locals here have ever seen someone with so many clothes. It was like a mexican wave with each layer we put on...

We spent the rest of the afternoon dodging massive squals and clouds and landed here just before sunset
after covering about 350 miles as the crow flies during the 10 hours of flying today.

[Tjeerd Beens]

Yes it was a trip and a half.We were looked after in more ways we will ever know and we are very thankful!

[Oliver Reik]

Rough riders! Well done! :-)

[Ross Jeffery]

Wow, sounds like a lot of flying!!

[Diego Sagrera]

Simply amazing you guys, what a trip you had today, you must be exhausted after flying for 10 hours, specially in those conditions.
Keep it up, and specially fly safe,
Diego.