Microlighters

Despite the very sad accident of losing Willem and Susan in the fatal accident, quite close to the Woodstock dam, half of the gyro contingent decided to continue on to Port St. John's as we thought we felt that's what Willem might have wanted, and aborting the trip wouldn't bring Willem back.

Attached are some of the highlights. For me, stopping over at the Shell Ultra City, at Escourt was quite fun, as well as flying along the coast (being a Valie I never get to see the sea), and the runway at Port St. John's. Simply awesome.

Some more photo's of the Wild Coast. The first is one of only 5 (I believe in the world), fresh water waterfalls that fall directly into the sea!

2nd photo of Hole in the Wall, and then the runway at Port St. John's.

Great pics Glenn,
I was so looking forward to the trip and was quite inspired watching you guys take off on Thursday morning.
I was shocked senseless when I heard the news that evening prior to my planned departure the next morning.
It took a lot of soul-searching that night before I decided not to join you guys the next day, but that was the decision I took and hopefully I will still experience the Port St John's airstrip one day.

Hope to fly with you soon before you "emmigrate" to the Cape.
The other Glen

ps; I hope you don't mind, but in honour of Willem and Susan I am posting a photo of their departure from Kitty. (Their children have asked for photographs to remember their parents by)
If the mods consider this inappropriate, my apologies.you may delete

Some more photo's of the berg on the way back. Those mountains are so huge. Am used to seeing them out of the window when at 39 000f ft, and they look much smaller!!!

Some photo's taken of Willem and Susan taken about 45 minutes before the accident. One wishes one could have warned them of the danger that lay before them, but then you would be God if you could do that...

Hi Glen - thanx for the nice pics and story. Maybe you can elaborate a bit on the trip.

What height were you flying around the berg?

When flying past the berg, we climbed up to 10 500ft. Those mountains are massive!

On the day of the accident, the briefing was to try and climb up the escarpment. I climbed up to a crazy altitude of 12 500ft. From up there, it became quite apparent that the cloud was banked up against the berg, althought the top of the escarpment was visible. It was stupid to continue on, and so I turned around and landed back at Harrismith. Without going into too much detail in case the family is reading this, we then realised on the way back to Harrismith that one of the gyro's was in trouble.

I then instigated search and rescue, and in the meantime, one of the gyro's got through to the Dragon's Peak Hotel. He decided to come back to Harrismith, telling us that the weather had improved. All of us then carried on to Dragon's Peak Hotel, trying to look for the missing gyro. It was after landing there, that I got a call from a police captain saying they had located the wreckage. The next day, we flew through to the Shell Ultra City at Escourt.

I was keen to continue the trip, despite the horrific events of the previous day, since I had made peace with myself that I thought that's what Willem might have wanted. 3 Gyro's (including myself), continued on to Port St. John's, while the rest of the gyro group decided to head back home.

All in all, the trip had some of the greatest highs and lows that one can experience, and despite my airline flying, I learnt so much about flying in the berg, and the dangers associated with that, particularly at this grass roots level. There were a lot of smaller incidents and things that happened along the way, that I aim to avoid next when going on a long cross country. What a learning experience!