Dune Goon

When I woke up this morning there were howling Easterlies. I drove out to the lighthouse and used the height to get an accurate idea of the exact wind direction and from there picked out the sections of dune that were into wind. Then I drove all the way back to city beach where I drove down on to the beach itself and followed it north towards Bundegi. I flew at 3 different points where it curves around into wind. The best was the last about 1km south of the Bundegi boat ramp. Around 1.30pm the wind had dropped to point where it was not fun any more and so I bravely tried to get down to Bundegi to get off the beach. Whilst I was flying the tide had been coming in and the sand became uncooperative when wet and I buried the car about half way up the beach and well below the high tide mark. I wasted about an hour digging the car out and then placing sticks and bits of coral into a track, but as soon as the track ended it was buried again.  It was the realisation that the tide really was coming in (and they have some huge tides here) that made me finally walk down to Bundegi boat ramp looking for help. After a couple of refusals, including one guy who did not want to take his new landcruiser off road, I finally lucked out when I found Gary and his wife in their lovely new Hilux. They have been coming up here for 22 years and new all the shortcuts and tricks. Gary refused to take any kind of payment for his assistance, just the reminder to do the same for someone else if the situation is ever reversed. I love the Ozzie generosity, born out of necessity perhaps, but it really does make this part of the world a nicer place.
This evening Gav, Mel and I played a game of mini golf, somehow I won by a couple of shots, just lucky today I guess...  After that we burnt huge numbers of calories on the trampolines there, and I will find out in the morning whether I have done any serious damage ;-)
They are predicting SW in the morning so I will be up on Pap Hill again first thing.