Catching up on the week

My wife decided that on Easter Sunday we should have a family reunion with her sister's family who live to the west of Aberdeen (just over a 100 miles from Kinross) and that was just the excuse that I needed for another long run on the bike, it also meant that there was a spare seat in our car for my dear Mother-in-Law......

I set off early travelling up the motorway to Scone. Unfortunately there was nothing doing so I kept on going along the old main road to Aberdeen, which is now lovely and quiet and just right for a Sunday run on the Beemer. Having followed the road up to Forfar I had little choice other than to join the main road for Aberdeen. Some forty odd miles later I left the A90 at Stonehaven for a B class road which would take me to Peterculter and the Culter Helipad.

There was not much going on, just a based R22, G-LIPE doing some Voucher flights, so I did not stay, backtracking to Peterculter and the main road to Aboyne. I was reminded of the Grampian Region's speeding problem when I passed a police BMW car at the road roadside, sitting there in an effort to deter the speeders and therefore cut the region's accident rate.

The gliding field at Aboyne is on the western side of the village just off the main road, where I gingerly turned off the nice secure tarmac road for a gravel track. You would know what I mean if you drove a bike whose all up weight at 300 kgs!
A short conversation with one of the gliding club members and a slightly longer one with the launch master and I got the necessary permission to go airside for my pictures.
Aboyne is one of those places where you are to the north of everything, which for the photographer means that the sun is in your eyes and no good for photography, hence the necessary permission to go airside. The other peculiarity about Aboyne is the way they launch their gliders. They load up with the pilot and student, then the glider is pushed back to the launch point on a hard runway where the tow line is attached to a Pawnee Tug and away they go.

The main style of gliding here is mountain wave, which means that a winch is no good for getting the gliders to where the action is so they use the Pawnee to tow the glider to likely spots where they will find the necessary updraughts.



With all the photos that I was going to take taken it was back on the bike and back into the Aboyne road, where I passed the Police car for the second time and my next port of call the Deeside Acitivity Centre.
This place intrigued me when I saw the picture of the Zenair with its nose buried in the ground. It turned out to be slightly disappointing when I could not get the access that I needed and had to settle for a long lens shot which had a fence in the way, that was until I met the owner, who was an extremely nice person, who gave me access to the Zenair and a wide angle shot without the fence.


My plan was to go north to the microlight strip at Insch, the problem was that neither of the three maps that I brought with me were any use, so relying on directions I headed north from the Activity Centre to discover a new microlight, a Whittaker MW6 at the roadside.


From here things started to go wrong. I got to a T-tunction and turned left when I should have turned right and ended up taking a directionally challenged tour of rural Aberdeenshire and by the time that I had got back on track I had run out of time and headed east and the family reunion.

This trip was also another first for me in that it was my first long distance run in the dark. To be honest it was not a pleasant experience, more trusting on luck and driving skill. All the visual references that I crave while out riding in the day time were mostly gone, replaced by lights, dazzle and the flash of the occasional speed camera, someone else not me!

After that it was back to work. My set of shifts finished on Sunday morning, which dawned bright with a touch of ground frost. It was such a nice morning that I took the scenic route home going through Lochgelly to Portmoak where I found the place covered in fog. There were a half dozen or so visiting gliders lined up on the southern boundary but without a camera or time I headed home and some welcome sleep.

Sunday evening was bright and calm, ideal weather for balloon flying. An Edinburgh company, Alba Ballooning fly pleasure flights from nearby Balado Bridge, so I went out on the bike to take some photos of Pete's Lindstrand balloon.
I have been taking photos of Pete's balloon for nearly three years now so I can experiment a little.
I love the cathedral of colour shots taken looking inside the envelope. Pete is in there sorting out the rigging. The envelope is filled with air from a fan. Pete adds a sense of scale, I am always impressed by the size of this hot air balloon.

This is a variation on a theme, I now realise that I need a flash gun to fill in some of the shadow details inside the basket.

Lastly a departure shot There is not a moment when I see the balloon drifting off that I wish that I was not in that basket. I really must try it one day.
I chased the balloon as it drifted eastwards over Fife to its landing spot near Auchtermuchty, where Pete make a perfect postage stamp landing beside a country road. Unfortunately the sun had set behind the hills and the whole thing was in shadow so I had to call it quits and head homewards and be content with three out of 87 photos to show for it.