The fair has arrived

We aren't sure why, but there is a hive of activity here (in the rain) with a fairground being set up on the aerodrome. It will probably rain most of today and the next few days so flying is on hold for a while. Most of the Australian team will arrive over the next 4 days with Allan and Dave arriving today -they just sent an SMS saying they have just crossed the border into Slovakia.

Yesterday yielded a brief window of good flying conditions. Visibility was greater than 60km and the clouds worked as they should - a great day to be in the air. I headed northeast along the ridges to the west of Martin, dodging airspace and para-gliders. The thermals were the strongest I've found so far with up to 5 knots so after the first turn I headed into the Tatra mountains. There was a convergence line over the main ridge with cloudbase 2000 feet lower on the northern side - of course I was approaching from the northern side so this made getting onto the ridge a challenge. But is was worth it and I was rewarded with a 6 knot climb up to the airspace limit of 8000 feet. Travelling back towards Prievidza along the convergence line was a heap of fun. Once back in the vicinity of Prievidza I headed southwest towards Nitra but was once again stopped by low cloudbase and lack of thermals - so I decided to abandon that goal and return to Prievidza while I still had the height. Overall a fun day in the sky.