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Adam blasted straight past the Royal National Park turnoff. He was taking the main highway this time, as it was more direct and faster. His mind was focussed. There was a determination there now. There needed to be because he was in a wrestling match with fear. He noticed that he was gripping the wheel unusually tightly and that his palms were sweating. He maintained a constant frozen stare through the windscreen, fighting with his thoughts. He wasn’t going to let his brain get the better of him. Not today. Today that mousy, whimpering mass of linguini in his head was getting shut down. Closed for the day. But the stubborn little brain wouldn’t go quietly, wouldn’t stifle.
‘What if something breaks? What if I crash or land in the ocean and get tangled under the sail, under the water, and drown?’
‘Shut up!’ he screamed.
He came to a turnoff. The sign read, Stanwell Park 5km. He turned left off the highway and cruised down the road towards Bald Hill.
His old hang glider was strapped on the roof. It had served him well at Kurnell. It wasn’t very efficient but it was stable and extremely forgiving. He had truly mastered it in the dunes. He was actually becoming somewhat of a hero to the beginners there, giving them plenty of his time helping-out and teaching them the basics. Everyone did that in those days as there were no instructors. You learned how to fly the same way you learnt how to surf, with the help of your friends.
Driving further down towards the coast he noticed a small shack on the right, set way back off the road. He assumed that was where Zeke lived. A short distance past the shack, the road began to descend and wind its way down through a forest of tall eucalypts.
He began to see glimpses of the ocean through the gaps between the long trunks of the trees. He thought he saw a flash of colour. He veered off the road a couple of times as he strained to see the view. Then, suddenly, it all opened up. He saw a hang glider, then another one, and then another three. They were all soaring the south face of Bald Hill.
They were all above the top of the hill, some as high as three hundred feet. Adam was stunned by the majesty of the scene. He felt like he had arrived in another world, another time, a place where everyone flew like the birds.
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As he drove out of the trees, the spectacular panorama of the Illawarra Coast exploded in front of him. He pulled off the road a few hundred yards short of the main car park, on the point, stepped out of the Charger and just stood there completely mesmerised. He looked down the road where he could see all the cars parked and all the hang gliders set up on the hill. The scene looked to him like something from another planet. He watched a glider launch into the lift and rise. He watched others turning, circling, diving and swooping, filling the sky with their vivid colours. He needed a few moments to adjust to this new reality. He was just about to get back into his car when he heard a voice yell out,
‘Hey, Adam!’
He looked around but couldn’t see anyone.
‘Heeeeeey, Adam, up here!’
He looked up and spotted a guy in a hang glider waving to him. The pilot was about one hundred feet above him. Adam waved and watched the pilot pull his glider into a shallow dive, away from the ridge, into the valley, then bank it hard right, come around in a spectacular 360-degree downwind turn, back towards him, and end up pointing into the wind hovering about fifteen feet above his head.
‘ It’s Arnold, it’s bloody Arnold, The Kid,’ he thought, ‘and he’s flying prone in one of the new prone belts.’
Arnold looked so smooth and stylish. He looked totally relaxed and masterful in the air. Adam was completely overawed. He never imagined, ever, in all his time flying, that it could ever be so big, so magnificent and so absolutely free. He heard The Kid yell out,
‘See ya on the hill, Adam.’
‘OK, Arnold.’
Adam watched Arnold pull in the base bar and penetrate his wing through the solid, twenty-knot, southerly wind. He flew out over the valley, level with the top of the hill, where he executed a high-bank, 180-degree turn. Adam watched in disbelief as Arnold flew straight back, directly downwind, approaching the hill at nearly fifty miles per hour.
He appeared totally casual as he seemingly headed for a massive impact. Adam observed nervously as Arnold neared the edge of the hill where he got a noticeably hefty kick-up from the strong lift band, which abruptly lifted him about twenty feet up and over the edge of the hill. At the same time, he rotated his glider back into the wind. Adam noticed that Arnold had to make a couple of exaggerated, reflex corrections to compensate for the
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turbulence he had to fly through. Suddenly all the apparent velocity stopped as he ended up hovering about ten feet above the open, flat space just behind the point of the hill.
Steve must have known what Arnold was doing because he was waiting for him there, with his arms outstretched, ready to grab Arnold’s front wires. For a few moments, Arnold just hovered there, in the wind, playing with the power, then, when he was ready, he pulled the bar towards himself and, as lightly as a feather, brought his glider down into the safe hands of his brother. His feet wouldn’t have broken an eggshell as they made their delicate contact with the ground.
‘He landed on top of the bloody hill,’ Adam thought to himself. ‘He didn’t even have to go to the beach.’
Adam got back into his car and drove down to the point.
As well as Arnold and Steve, Adam saw Ken’s car there. Ken was flying, apparently testing his new prone belt. Adam met other members of the inner circle that day. There was Glenn and young Tim, and he also met Zeke that day. Everyone was there. He watched them flying, unable to believe the high level of skill they had developed in such a short time. And they were all landing back on top of the hill, meaning that they could fly all day, enjoying multiple flights, without ever having to pack up and re-setup their gliders.
The big talk on the hill, amongst all the pilots, was who was going to be the first to make it over to Mitchell’s Mountain.
It was a good mile across the Stanwell Valley and there was no lift all the way over.
The gliders they were flying, although probably the most advanced in the world at that time, were nonetheless still relatively inefficient, lucky to squeeze out a six to one glide ratio, with a good pilot in the harness.
They all stood in a group, on the point, gazing across the wide gap to Mitchell’s, exchanging ideas as to how one of them could make it over. It wasn’t only mandatory to fly across the gap, but the successful pilot had to soar up the east face of Mitchell’s and rise above the top. At one thousand feet, Mitchell’s was four hundred feet higher than Bald Hill. The guys knew that whoever made it up the face over there was going to get huge altitude, maybe fourteen hundred feet. None of them had ever flown that high. They knew that flying back from that height would be a piece of cake and the successful pilot would probably make it back six, or maybe even seven hundred feet above the top of Bald Hill.
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Nature had set the challenge again, and there it was, staring them right in their collective faces, beckoning them to have a go.
Adam was there, right in the midst of it all. He was listening to the chatter, but was not part of it. He hadn’t earned that honour yet. He had an insight into the moment, though, an awareness all his own. He thought,
‘How magnificent, how historic. These guys are contemplating the challenge of the ages and nobody even knows about it. There will be no gold medal waiting for the first pilot across the gap. No one will write about it in any history books. It won’t even make the evening news. It will happen secretly. I wonder why?’
Steve began analysing the dangers of a committed attempt at crossing over to Mitchell’s.
‘The biggest danger is going down in the ocean. Whoever has a serious go will be lucky to get across level with the lower cliffs on the other side. There’s going to have to be enough lift down there to not only stay up, but to start climbing.’
Steve was pointing across the valley at the two-hundred-foot-high, vertical, lower cliffs that skirted around the east side of the base of Mitchell’s Mountain. The whole group was focused on the spot where they thought they would intercept the lower cliffs at the end of their long glides across the valley. Steve continued,
‘Well, you won’t be able to get into that lift unless you fly far enough south along those lower cliffs. So far, in fact, that should you not make it up, you won’t be able to glide back to the beach from there, so you’ll go in the drink. At the very best, you’ll lose your glider. At worst, you’ll lose your life.’
Steve commanded the most respect on the hill. When he spoke, everyone listened.
He was erasing any illusions from anyone’s mind about what was involved in making it up Mitchell’s. He went on,
‘There is no point trying it in a southerly, or even south-easterly. Too much headwind flying across and no lift on the cliffs. It’s going to have to be an easterly wind, a strong one, at least twenty-five knots. That’s the only type of wind that’s going to give enough height on this side to get across, not be too head-windy to kill your glide, and give enough lift off the lower cliffs on the other side. Well, a wind like that is going to kick up a huge swell. So, whoever has a serious go at it, and doesn’t make it, is going to get destroyed in the ocean, for sure.’
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Adam could see how the lower cliffs on the other side curved back towards the beach. That meant that the wind wouldn’t be hitting that part of the cliffs square on, meaning that there would be no lift there. A pilot would have to fly at least another four hundred yards along the cliffs, with no lift and nowhere to land, to get to the part of the cliffs that faced more directly into the wind. Then, as Steve was trying to explain to everyone, by the time a pilot had reached the potentially lifting part of the cliffs, he was committed, too far from the beach to make it back for a safe landing. Steve continued,
‘Assuming that you make it up on the lower cliffs, you still have to cross the road, the power lines and the railway. Those are high-tension power lines over that railway.
Then you have to claw your way up eight-hundred feet of Mitchell’s east face, hoping that you don’t cop a rotor off the lower cliffs that might slam you into a rocky outcrop or hang you up in a hundred-and-fifty foot gum tree where you’ll probably die of thirst before anyone can get to you. Actually, they’ll probably just leave you there, thinking that the bloody fool doesn’t deserve saving.’
Everyone turned in unison as they heard the sound of a deep belly laugh.
‘You’re a cheerful bastard today, Steve. I can’t see the big deal. It’s just a matter of jumpin off the bloody hill an goin for it. You know that too much thinkin’s never done nobody no good.’
Steve replied in jest, as they were really good friends,
‘Too much thinking was never one of your problems, Zeke.’
Everybody had a nervous laugh. They all knew, as well, that both men were partially right. Then Zeke said,
‘If anybody gets over … well … they can just keep on goin for another bloody fifty miles if they want, all the way down to Jamberoo Valley, and then, maybe, all the way back. That’s the real deal here.’
Everyone just stayed silent trying to imagine such a monumental flight. Zeke had already imagined it, and flown it, in his own mind, many times before.
Ken walked up to Adam and asked him,
‘Want a hand with your glider?’
‘You think it’s any good?’ Adam replied rather nervously.
‘It’s perfect, especially for your first glide. Come on, I’ll help you set up.’
Good old Ken was there again, forging the way, helping out and giving confidence, not to mention keeping Adam safe from harm. Adam was as nervous as he’d ever been in
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his whole life. He walked to the edge of the hill and felt the wind, then he walked to the toilet, then he checked his glider and gear and then walked to the edge of the hill again, after which he took another trip to the toilet. He kept repeating this ritual until Ken literally stopped him and said,
‘OK, Adam, it’s just the same as the big dune at Kurnell. Just do everything the same and fly straight down to the beach. I’ll drive down to get you.’
Adam clipped his harness into the hang loop and picked up his glider with Ken assisting on the front wires. Arnold spotted them from a distance and ran over to assist with a side wire. Ken spoke calmly to Adam.
‘Don’t rush it. Just feel the wind for a while. Feel the gusts and the lulls. It’s fairly strong today, so you want to launch in a lull. On a light day, you wait for a gust. Let the bar out a bit. That’s it. Don’t worry, we’ve got you.’
Adam’s feet dangled in the air as his glider flew in the wind, only being held down by Ken and Arnold’s secure hands.
‘We can actually air-launch you. You won’t have to run. When you launch, you’re going to go up. Don’t worry about it. Just fly straight towards the beach and fly a bit faster than normal. There’s no need to panic when you go up, no need to dive out of it, just let it lift you, fly a bit faster and fly straight. When you fly out of the lift, you’ll start gliding down to the beach. You’ll make it with heaps of height today. Just keep flying down the beach until you touch down. I’ll see you down there, OK?’
Arnold kicked in with,
‘You’ll never forget this one, Adam.’
Both Ken and Arnold altered their hold of Adam’s glider. They both grabbed one front wire and one side wire in readiness to give Adam an air-launch. Adam’s feet dangled off the ground as Ken asked,
‘Ready?’
‘Yeah, feels pretty good actually. I’ve got nice control.’
‘OK, pull the bar in a bit and we’ll start walking you to the edge of the hill, that’s it, we’re going to throw you off … ready?’
‘Ready? I’m flying already. Launch me!’
The boys walked forward into the wind, still holding Adam’s flying wing down. As they reached the edge of the hill, they gave him an almighty push and flung him into open space.
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The glider was old and its sail had a few wrinkles. The trailing edge fluttered because the sailcloth had stretched over time and there were no battens to support and smooth it out. But it was the only glider Adam had ever flown. For him, it flew perfectly.
It was stable and predictable. He knew its reactions and its limitations. He had explored the old glider’s full envelope of performance and it fitted him like an old pair of jeans.
Adam was launched off the hill like a model airplane. He didn’t run off; he was thrown off. The ground fell away beneath him as his glider rose upward in the strong lift.
He gained a hundred feet in a matter of seconds but did not panic. He just let the glider cruise and headed in the direction of the beach. He gained another hundred feet before he levelled out and began to descend. It struck him, momentarily, that he wasn’t learning how to fly, he was finding out that he knew how to do it all along. In a moment, he felt his flying instincts, which had been sleeping deep within his soul, being awakened. As he glided towards the beach, which was still seven-hundred feet below him, he thought that he could remember something like this from a distant past. The feeling grew, like an old memory coming back. He began to feel like he knew this place, this space, and that he knew what to do and how to fly, as if he’d been there before, as if he’d flown there before.
Then he began to hallucinate. Later, he would think it might have had something to do with all the gas he’d been breathing. The waterslide never crossed his mind at all.
He began to feel strange. Everything faded to light. His head began to feel odd, like it was changing shape, like it had changed shape into a bird’s head. He felt it, and it was smiling. He was smiling. He felt the corners of its mouth smiling. He completely lost his awareness of the fact that he was controlling a hang glider in flight. Then the most amazing thing happened. He heard the whole sky speak to him in a loving, woman’s voice.
Adam, it is enough to just be.
In a nanosecond he understood that he was just a visitor in this world. That there would be things he would like and things he would not like. He understood that the world was sacred and in perfect balance. That creation and destruction, beauty and ugliness, health and disease, birth and death, war and peace, light and darkness, heaven and hell, all was as it was meant to be. If he tried to change it, he would ruin it. If he tried to possess it, he would lose it. He would let others try to fix it and try to own it. He would let others torture themselves in it. For the first time in his life he understood acceptance. With no thought whatsoever, he realized that this life, and this world, were but a blink of the eye in another, much, much longer life.
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Like a fading memory, he heard the sky speak again.
Do nothing, accept everything and emerge from the tapestry.
The last words were very faint and he wasn’t absolutely sure about them.
As he silently glided through the smooth air, the feeling of having a bird’s head on his shoulders began to leave him. It felt to him like he was coming out of a trance as he focussed onto the long beach looming up beneath him.
There was nothing new in the task that faced him next. He had accomplished it hundreds of times before, at the dunes. He sped up into a shallow dive, crossed the northern creek with eighty feet to spare, levelled out a few feet above the sand, let his excess speed wash off and finally pushed out for a perfect landing.
He was still sitting under the sail, looking vague, as Ken arrived to help him carry his glider into the park.
‘Imperfection is just a part of the whole perfection.’
‘What?’
‘How can we know beauty as beauty, unless there is ugliness?’
‘What are you on about, Adam?’
‘A man must first be lost before he can understand the joy of being found.’
‘Adam, are you OK?’
‘Happiness has its roots in misery.’
‘Hello, hello, anybody home? That was a great flight, Adam. It looked perfect from the hill.’
Adam looked into Ken’s face with a distinct glaze in his eyes. All he could say was,
‘Wow!’
‘What was that beauty ugliness crap you were on about?’
‘Wow! … I’m good, Kenny, I’m good.’ He looked back at the hill, ‘Wow!’
‘You looked a bit weird for a while. I thought maybe you hit your head.’
‘No … I’m fine … Wow! How high was I?’
Ken began to laugh.
‘Skyed-out mate, skyed-out eight-hundred feet at least. It was perfect, perfect.’
‘I’m blown away, Kenny.’
‘I can see that, mate, I can see that.’
The two friends sat together in the sand, allowing some time for Adam to come down from his rush. After a suitable interlude, Ken suggested,
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‘You ready to pack up and get back up the hill? You should have another go today to reinforce your experience.’
‘’Yeah, let’s do that. I feel much more confident now. I want to have another go.’
As the boys packed up the glider in the picturesque park, in the centre of the valley, Adam wished that Nancy were there. She was the only person in the whole world that he could talk to about his strange insights. He knew, though, that he would have to be patient.
That conversation was going to have to wait for another time.
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When they arrived back up on top of the hill, the flying was in full swing. Adam decided to wait for a while before setting up again, while Ken went to his kite, which was lying flat on the ground. It was possible to drop one’s wing by unclipping the front wires and folding back the A-frame. It only took a second and it placed the wing safely flat on the ground and out of the wind.
Ken asked Adam to hold his front wires for him while he set himself up. When he was ready, he moon-walked to the edge of the hill with his glider partially flying him. He didn’t require launch assistance because he was now a master pilot. Adam watched as his old friend stood on the very edge of land, six hundred feet above the South Pacific Ocean, controlling the angle of attack of his flying machine, precisely preventing it from taking off or squashing him into the ground. Then, without taking a step, he bent his knees and sprang into the air. As he did this, he eased out the bar. It looked like he jumped into the air and just kept going. They were all doing no-step take-offs that day, making Adam think that they looked like some kind of advanced beings from another planet, or maybe even gods, come to this Earth in secret to enjoy one of their favourite activities.
Adam sat on the ground and absorbed himself in the spectacle before him. He noticed that there was a kind of unofficial competition going on. The contest was for the airspace right in front of the point of the hill. All the hot pilots flew mainly in an aerobatic style. Like moths flying around a light globe, they fought it out for the airspace nearest to the point of the hill. To ‘hog the hill’, which was what they called it, they had to literally make each pass within feet of the ground. It was all about intimidation, about being more dangerous than the next pilot, about earning the right to be there. And being there meant being centre-stage because that was what that airspace represented. Everyone knew it and all the ace pilots competed for it, all day, every day.
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Adam noticed Zeke setting up a little further along the hill. He decided to go over and talk to him.
‘Hey, Zeke.’
‘You’re Adam, aren’t ya?’
‘Yep. Hey that’s a pretty different looking hang glider you’ve got there. I hear you design and build your own.’
‘You hear right, mate. This one’s number five.’
‘It looks so thin.’
‘That’s because it’s got a high aspect ratio.’
‘And that’s good?’
‘Mate, this machine can outglide everythin in the air. It can literally fly circles around Steve’s kites.’
‘Why doesn’t Steve make one like yours?’
‘Cause it’s too radical. He knows nobody’d buy one. That’s why they’re movin so slow. Too bloody slow for me, mate.’
Adam walked around Zeke’s glider and gave it a close inspection. It definitely didn’t look like one of Steve’s works of art. It was a rough job. There were nuts and bolts hanging out everywhere, the wires weren’t neatly trimmed and the sail was stitched up very roughly. Adam even thought he could see patches of an old sail sewn into this one. The only thing that was amazing was its plan shape. It had a very short keel, making it look like something from the distant future. It positively made all the other gliders look prehistoric.
‘Have you flown it?’
‘Yeah, four times.’
‘How did it go?’
‘Well, the first time I flew it, it scared the shit out of me. It had no bar pressure. It just wanted to dive me into the ground. An when I turned it, it just wanted to keep turnin, goin into a steeper and steeper bank. If I’d let it, it would have gone into an unrecoverable, spiral dive.’
‘Jees, Zeke, how did you fix all those problems?’
‘I moved the CG back an gave it more reflex. That took care of the divin. Then I let out the side wires, givin it more dihedral. That stabilised it in the turns. It flies sweet-as
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now.’ Zeke looked up for a moment. ‘I think the wind is swingin around to the east. If it stays strong …’
He stopped short of completing his sentence as if he didn’t want anyone to know what he was thinking. But Adam noticed when Zeke’s gaze focussed across the valley onto the top of Mitchell’s Mountain. Adam sensed that Zeke’s main motivation in life, at that moment, was to be the first across to Mitchell’s. Zeke would do whatever was necessary to achieve that goal. Adam guessed that the glider Zeke had built was not designed for the typical aerobatic, hill-hogging style of flight, but for efficient, long-distance, cross-country gliding, to carry him across to Mitchell’s. They both knew that there was only one prize in this challenge. Being the first. There were no other prizes.
Adam did notice that the wind was gradually swinging to the east and, if anything, getting stronger. He also noticed that there was only one pilot, there, paying the right kind of attention to it.
On the hill, Steve was ‘the man’. On the ground he was wise and composed. In the air, however, he was radical and dangerous, pulling off moves that seemed superhuman.
To watch him fly, you would swear it wasn’t the same guy you just spoke to on the ground.
Zeke, on the other hand, created the impression of a man constantly balancing on the razor edge of insanity. His long, blond hair stuck out wildly and waved around spectacularly in the strong winds that blew on his favourite hill. His clothes were old and coarse. His leathery skin was lined and weathered, like that of a much older person who had spent most of his life in the harsh outdoors. He was tall and when he spoke, it was with a strong, baritone voice. The colour of his speech was always defiance, not towards any individual, but towards the whole world, which he perceived as constantly threatening his freedom. For some strange reason he reminded Adam of a wolf, wild and free. He could see it in his bright-blue eyes, which burned with a ferocious intensity.
People who didn’t know him very well were actually afraid to make eye contact with him.
They thought that he either looked crazy, or evil, and they stayed away from him. And that’s precisely what he wanted.
Zeke and Steve were pretty good friends, although Steve’s true inner feelings about Zeke could best be described as complicated. For sure, Steve loved the big man and thought that he understood him better than most. One couldn’t say that he felt threatened by him. No. It was clear who was the dominant pilot. But Steve just couldn’t understand why he felt a deep uneasiness inside. Zeke was doing something to him, something subtle
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and stealthy. Somehow, he was worming into his mind and causing havoc. Steve tried to focus on his job, testing, adjusting, modifying, but hard as he tried, he couldn’t stop himself wondering what Zeke was up to. Others could pass Zeke off as just a ‘nut case’, but Steve was too cautious for that. He sensed something about Zeke, something that would affect him in the future. He couldn’t get rid of the feeling. He managed to hide it from everyone, including Arnold, but one time when he made eye contact with those fiery eyes of Zeke’s, across fifty yards of hill, he knew in an instant that Zeke knew, because he recognised it in the subtle smile that appeared on Zeke’s face.
By now, the wind had swung completely to the east and substantially increased in strength, gusting up to thirty knots at times. Adam was reconsidering his second flight, thinking that he would prefer more mellow conditions for his level of skill. All the hot pilots were in the air, on the east face now, absolutely raging in the big lift. The east face generated much more lift than the south face as it was higher and part of it was vertical cliff face. This caused the pilots to gain much more altitude. Some of them were achieving up to one thousand feet above sea level.
Everyone’s main focus was still on the point, on who could hog the hill for longest.
They would take off, rip up the sky for ten minutes, and then land back on top again. They would then hang on the point, posing, and looking around to see if there were any pretty girls worth chatting up.
Adam sipped on a Coke as he watched, in awe, as Steve’s wild aerobatics attracted all the attention of the crowd on the hill. His concentration was broken by Zeke’s deep voice.
‘Giz a hand off, Adam?’
‘Sure, Zeke. Can’t wait to see your ship fly, mate.’
Zeke clipped into his strange hang glider, with Adam holding his front wires. He looked skyward, lifted his wing and said,
‘OK, check ya later.’
‘Have a good one, mate.’
Adam stepped out of the way and watched as Zeke just stood there momentarily, ground handling and feeling his glider in the strong wind. Then, with total control, he bent his knees slightly, eased the bar out and sprang gently into the air. Due to the strength of the wind, he was able to climb out absolutely vertically from his take-off point. He rose up and up and up, his wide span lifting him effortlessly skyward. The futuristic wing easily
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lifted him through the whole gaggle of kites in the air. He rose straight through one thousand feet above sea level. Even though he had no instruments, he knew when he was at one thousand feet because he could line himself up with the top of Mitchell’s on the other side of the valley. As he rose rapidly beyond his previous highest-ever altitude, he watched the whole world recede away beneath him. His long, blond hair blew in the wind as his horizons expanded to include Wollongong, fifty kilometres to the south over his right shoulder, and Sydney, eighty kilometres to the north over his left. Occasionally he executed a wide, lazy 360, during which he could see the low line of the Blue Mountains on the westerly horizon, nearly one hundred kilometres away. Mitchell’s was starting to look smaller and smaller as he patiently milked every foot of lift out of the easterly wind.
Like a huge soaring eagle, his wing hovered at least five hundred feet above the next highest glider. He knew that it was now or never. A wind like this might not come again for another year or maybe even two. Mitchell’s looked so small, and so close, a seemingly easy glide across the valley. But he was aware of the illusion and he knew that he would be lucky to make it over above the lower cliffs.
At this time, Adam was still the only person on the hill aware of what was happening. He saw Zeke’s glider, a thousand feet above him, as nothing more than a small speck in the sky. Steve hadn’t noticed Zeke’s climb-out, because he was preoccupied with his own aerobatic exploits. When he eventually landed, Adam came over to him and told him what he thought Zeke was up to. Steve showed real surprise and, in an agitated manner, asked Adam to hold his glider for a moment. He stepped out of his harness and looked up, searching for the unmistakable shape of Zeke’s wing.
‘He’s crazy! He’ll kill himself! You bastard, Zeke. Look at him, he’s not going anywhere, he’s just hanging there, looking down, waiting for me to fly up and take him on. You mongrel, Zeke, why are you doing this today? Shit!’
Adam couldn’t believe his ears. How did Steve know that Zeke was waiting for him up there? Nobody else could have known something like that. It was true though. Zeke had spotted Steve’s glider while he was still climbing out and like one of those cunning hawks that hunted little rodents around Bald Hill, he locked onto it and waited to see if a decisive move would come from Steve. Zeke watched him land and saw him looking up at him from one thousand feet below. At that moment, Zeke knew that Steve knew. Adam made a comment.
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‘He could go now and be the first across, completely unchallenged. Why would he wait and risk not being the first?’
‘Because he’s Zeke, that’s why,’ answered Steve, ‘and because he’s crazy … and …
and … because he has honour. It’s all so much bullshit though.’
Steve climbed back into his harness and asked Adam to help him off, and, ‘Can you tell Arnold what’s going on when he lands.’ He then looked skyward, took a deep breath and sighed, ‘It’s as good a day as any, I suppose.’
Steve asked Adam to step out of the way and launched off the hill. All this time Zeke hovered one thousand feet above, waiting for a sign from Steve, which he got. Steve turned away from the gaggle and flew a short distance north along the easterly ridge to the part where it became vertical rock face in the shape of a bowl. There the lift was most powerful and would take Steve up the quickest and the highest. It took him about ten minutes to climb out to Zeke’s altitude. He actually struggled to gain the last hundred feet and was never to know that Zeke graciously sacrificed about fifty feet of his own altitude so that Steve could fly up to his right wingtip.
When the two friends were level with one another, Steve spoke first.
‘It’s true, Zeke, you are nuts.’
‘Compared to who? You go first, eh?’
‘This is total bullshit, you know, but OK, OK, I’ll go. Hey …’
‘Yeah?’
‘Thanks for waiting.’
‘I wasn’t waitin, I was enjoyin the view.’
‘Hey, Zeke.’
‘Yeah?’
‘I’ve been meaning to ask you. What is that pile of shit you are flying? Did you get your mama to stitch it up for you?’
A huge grin appeared on Zeke’s face. This was what he had been waiting for. A spirited contest, winner takes all. He always felt, frustratingly, that Steve was going too slowly with glider design and that this was his way of showing him. Wing design and its evolution were as much a passion for Zeke as being first across the valley.
Steve set off first, closely followed by Zeke on his left wingtip. With no instruments, they started their long glides at about sixteen-hundred feet above sea level. They were flying crosswind, which allowed them to make reasonable headway.
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By now, the word had got around on the hill. Each pilot that landed parked his glider and joined the group standing on the point. Everyone was totally transfixed by the events unfolding high over the Stanwell Valley.
Both pilots straightened their bodies and pointed their toes in order to minimise their parasitic drag. They were flying wingtip to wingtip. They were both searching for their most efficient gliding speed. Too fast or too slow meant an excess loss of precious altitude. They both looked at each other comparing each other’s progress, then they locked onto an imaginary arrival point on the other side of the valley. That was how they were able to judge their glide. If the chosen aiming point was going down, they were gliding better than expected, if it was going up, they weren’t going to make it.
Initially their gliding performance was fairly equal, but that was chiefly due to the fact that they were still flying in some residual lift off the southern face of Bald Hill. It soon became apparent, however, that Zeke’s glider flew more efficiently. Zeke began to pull away, ahead of Steve, and when Steve tried to keep up, he began to lose altitude. Slowly Zeke crept ahead and there was nothing that Steve could do about it.
Gradually, one by one, all the pilots landed back on the hill. Everyone was now totally focussed on the two gliders, high above the valley, flying boldly into unknown airspace.
By the time they were half way across, Zeke had lost at least five hundred feet. He was roughly level with the top of Mitchell’s. Steve was about thirty yards behind him and about fifty feet lower. Both pilots could see that it was going to be close, but what was becoming plainly obvious was that Zeke’s glider was clearly outperforming Steve’s. Steve estimated that he was going to arrive at the lower cliffs at least one hundred feet below Zeke, but he figured that thirty knots of wind should generate sufficient lift down there to get him back up. He thought that he’d had much more experience at flying in those conditions than Zeke. Also, Zeke was going to reach those cliffs first, meaning that he would mark out the lift for him and show him how much further along the dangerous cliffs he would have to fly before he encountered the lift zone. All these thoughts raced through Steve’s mind as he tried to formulate the best strategy to use.
On the hill, everyone was silent. They all knew what was at stake. They understood the danger, which was only made more extreme due to the fact that there were two of them pushing each other. Eventually, Arnold spoke first.
‘Zeke’s got a weapon there. Look at the way it glides.’
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That started them all going.
‘They’re getting close to the cliffs.’
‘Looks like Zeke’s gonna have about a hundred feet to spare.’
‘Steve’s really gonna have to scratch to get up.’
‘Yeah, but he’s a heaps better pilot.’
Zeke zeroed in on his aiming point, the first part of the lower cliffs beginning at the southern part of the beach. He arrived there eighty feet above the top. At that point, he had already achieved more than anyone else. Now he had to fly into cross-headwind, along those cliffs, out to sea and away from the safety of the beach.
Steve, on the other hand, had changed direction and flown out to sea well before he got to the cliffs. He figured that that was his only chance of getting up. His adjusted flight path actually shortened the distance between them, with Steve gliding over the cliff edge only fifty feet behind Zeke and about twenty above the top.
Zeke was still thirty feet higher than Steve and they were both going down roughly at the same rate as they punched into headwind, away from the beach and towards the point of no return.
Just two hundred feet below them were huge, jagged boulders being smashed by a savage, eight-foot swell. The spray of the wild surf was being picked up by the strong wind and blown up the face of the cliffs, spraying the two daring pilots from beneath. It took immense willpower for them to keep going, and it was really Zeke’s willpower, because he was in front, leading, and to Steve’s disbelief, forging ahead and still going down. Steve knew that he couldn’t turn around first. Nothing in his makeup would allow him to do that. He watched Zeke and followed, still going down and totally committed.
The thought crossed his mind whether Zeke was really mad and whether he was following a madman into oblivion.
Back on the hill,
‘Look what they’re doing, they’re both mad!’
‘They’re goin down.’
‘There’s no way they’re getting up from there.’
‘If they don’t turn around right now, they’re in the drink.’
‘Look, they’re still goin down.’
‘There’s no lift on those cliffs.’
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Zeke crossed the Rubicon with absolutely no hesitation, level with the top of the cliff. Twenty seconds later, Steve passed the same spot about twenty feet lower. Their destinies were now sealed. There was nothing more to think about, there was only to fly as efficiently as possible in a place and in a way that no man in history had ever flown before.
They were both below the top of the cliff when they flew out of sight of those standing on Bald Hill. All the pilots missed seeing Zeke hit lift at precisely the point Steve predicted. Everyone missed how, at first, he only maintained his altitude, but then, gradually, as he kept flying further south, with his right wingtip only feet from the vertical rock wall, inch by inch, he desperately scratched back up to be level with the clifftop, with every foot he gained taking him into incrementally stronger lift. They missed the look on Steve’s face when he realised that he wasn’t going to get up. They missed the way their eyes met in recognition of each other’s courage and they missed Steve’s gallant salute to Zeke as he turned out to ditch in the sea in order to land away from certain destruction on the deadly boulders now only one hundred feet below him.
‘There’s one of them! Which one is it?’
‘One of them made it. I think it’s Zeke. Yeah, look at the colour of the kite, it’s Zeke!’
‘Where’s Steve?’
‘You think he’s gone down?’
The blood drained from Arnold’s face as he became overcome with fear for the safety of his brother. He couldn’t decide what to do. There was no point in driving around the cliffs because there was no road-access to that part of the coast. He realised that Steve was on his own.
Zeke had lifted a good fifty feet above the lower cliffs as he watched Steve splash down in the ocean. No one knew that he was poised to dive his glider into the water right next to his friend, should he not pop up within about fifteen seconds. His plan was to fly to his rescue.
Meanwhile, Steve was stuck under his sail, trapped underwater in his harness.
However, the ocean was Steve’s domain. He was extremely fit and he’d been held down under huge waves, while surfing, more times than he could remember. Holding his breath, cool as a cucumber, he took out his pocketknife, opened it and reached up for his hang loop. The razor-sharp blade cut the loop in one slash and set him free from the now slowly sinking hang glider.
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Zeke counted to fourteen when he saw Steve’s head pop up above the surface.
Arnold watched the behaviour of Zeke’s kite as an indication to the welfare of his brother. He knew two things. He knew that his brother was a master waterman who would never panic in the ocean, under any circumstance, and he also knew that Zeke would never let Steve drown without first risking his own life trying to save him. So, Arnold knew that if Zeke continued to soar, Steve was OK. And that’s exactly what happened. When he saw that Zeke had continued to climb higher and higher above the lower cliffs, he announced to the concerned group gathered on the hill,
‘Steve’s OK.’
‘How do you know that?’
‘I just know, but I suspect that we’ve lost a glider.’
The lift was so strong on the other side of the valley that Zeke didn’t have to do anything other than point his glider into the wind to keep climbing up the east face of the mighty Mitchell’s Mountain. He kept one eye on Steve, who had discarded his harness, shoes and jacket to make it easier for him to swim back to the beach. When he was sure that Steve was OK, he began concentrating on his flight quietly chuckling to himself. The higher he got, the faster he went up. There was a big cheer on the hill as he was effortlessly lifted past the vertical rock face near the top of the big mountain. He knew nothing about that, though, because he was lost in a new world.
It was late afternoon and the sun was shining out of the western sky. Its light, as was so typical around the Stanwell valley, was filtered by the heavy atmosphere, causing it to enhance the colours of everything it shone upon. The rays could be plainly seen because they refracted off the sea spray that hung in the air all along the escarpment. Due to these conditions, the whole last part of Zeke’s flight was in the shadow of the mountain. The desperate scratch along the lower cliffs and the rapid climb up the face were all executed in relative darkness. It could have symbolised man’s existence up to that point in history.
Man was shackled to the Earth, unable to experience the freedom of birdlike flight. Adam could see it, watching from Bald Hill. As Zeke topped the big mountain, he and his glider became bathed in golden light, making them glow as if they were on fire.
All the pilots watched in awe as Zeke became a glowing speck in the sky. They’d not only never seen a hang glider on the other side of the valley, they had never seen anyone, nor had any one ever been, so high, ever before.
‘He must be eighteen hundred feet, easy.’
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‘It must look great from up there.’
‘Hey, is that Steve getting out of the water down on the southern end of the beach?’
‘Hey, Arnold, there’s Steve.’
‘I better get down there and take him some dry clothes. What a day, what an insane day.’
‘I’ll come down in my car as well, Arnold.’
‘OK, see you down there, Adam.’
3
All the good pilots top-landed all day. At the end of the day, however, they all, one by one, glided down into the green park in the centre of the idyllic valley.
Although the escarpment cast long shadows in the afternoon sun, the park stayed bathed in warm sunlight the longest. The spot where they all parked their wings and congregated was magically always the place where the sun shed its last rays of the day.
Adam noticed the aesthetic of that mystical moment when the whole valley was in shadow, yet the group of pioneers and their colourful wings glowed iridescent, literally being lit by nature’s very own spotlight.
When the easterly wind blew, it blew straight in off the ocean, meaning that the pilots could land in the park instead of out on the beach. One at a time, they came gliding deep into the valley, watched by the whole crew relaxing on the grass. Some just did a simple, but graceful, approach, flying efficiently and extending their glides as long as possible, while others flew out over the valley with plenty of altitude and executed a spectacular, aerobatic display, performing stalls, dives and over-the-top wingovers, often entering their last manoeuvre dangerously close to the ground. They would then come out of that, glide inches above the grass for fifty yards, then push out for an extreme nose-up flare, rise maybe ten or fifteen feet into the air, then tail-slide down backwards, landing perfectly, but often heavily, on their feet and the back of their keel. Occasionally they broke their keel showing off like that.
4
Adam sat with Arnold and Steve, who had dried off by now and changed into dry clothes. He didn’t show it on the outside but he was totally exhilarated. He couldn’t describe to anyone how much he enjoyed the duel with Zeke. As he sat there quietly, as was his nature, he realised that he felt more alive at that moment than ever before. It wasn’t just blood pumping through his arteries, it was pure life. It didn’t matter to him, at
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all, that he was defeated, or that he went down in the raging ocean, or even that he lost his glider. What mattered was that Zeke waited for him and chose to share that once only experience with him. He was waiting for Zeke to land. He wanted to be the first to congratulate him, and he wanted to help pack up his glider.
After everyone had landed and parked their wings out of the way, Zeke glided in, flying directly downwind from at least a mile out to sea. He flew straight over everyone’s head and after a shallow dive and a lazy, semi-stalling, 180-degree turn back into the wind, he brought his victorious airship in for a perfect landing right in the middle of all his friends, lit by the last rays of golden sunlight of that most magnificent and most memorable day.
As a tranquil twilight descended on the park and the street light came on, they all sat in a group talking about the exploits of the day, having beers, passing joints and laughing.
No one noticed, in the dim light, that perched on a small rocky outcrop, on the edge of the low cliff just on the other side of the small lagoon of the northern creek, was an enormous, wild eagle listening to the chatter and laughter and sharing in the feelings, and wishing that he could dare to fly in amongst them and be one of them as well.
…….
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