Out with Glenn, TimO, Mark and Andy at Barkin. As usual we tried to get away in a gaggle, but failed there, so once again it was every man for himself.
The meat of the flight was a mix of broken blue sky climbs and stronger cloud topped beauties, but the story really only took off late in the day… When Scotland became goal: )
After my Hartside Pass lowish save on the northernmost Pennines, the hills worked really well and this tiny little idea of making it over the border became a fixation! Climbs out to the A69 were promising but with nothing since Brampton I was begging out loud for one last necessary climb. -2… -3… -5 sink… All the clouds were dying off, the day was over, nothing on the ground looked promising. Suddenly then there is was… An isolated but well formed escalator - climbing now, the distant river marking the border came into sight. But yikes, I was drifting back towards Spadeadam airspace, and zooming in on FlySkyHy showed it just a few 360s away! I straightened out, taking a line to the nearest spot on the border it looked like a safe bet.
Crossing the river with plenty of height I whooped and faffed about with my camera… Job done! But then I saw another River through the town (Canonbie) a mile or so ahead… Was that the border? I had to try and cross it! Oh bugger - there was no way I'd get another climb. I tried to get closer but there were pylons and power lines and lambs in all the fields - it'd be dangerously tight. Not Worth the risk. I saw one safe empty field and decided I'd just have to land short.
I landed (poorly! ) with one question in my head… Is this Scotland? I pulled my phone out and before getting to maps saw GeoffC on whatsapp with a congratulations - he'd been watching on Livetrack. Boom! An inappropriate belly wiggling Scotsman gif to the gang was called for; )
Retrieve was a whole separate adventure. Flying while infected with my first case of covid, I knew hitching was best avoided. Calls to a couple of taxi company's went unanswered - who'd have thunk it on a Saturday night? So it had to be a six mile 'tab' as Westie would say, to Longtown, to catch a bus to Carlisle (bargain £2! Thanks UK gov cost of living crisis fare cap! )
I reached the station about 20.20 to find the last train south was the 20.04:(… But all kudos to Avanti it was delayed and ten minutes later I had a carriage all to myself to Oxenholme, where star Tim Rodgers had relocated my car from Barkin. Cheers Tim!
Altogether a very lucky day… Just kept rolling those dice!