The wonder of free flight never wears off. Goals might change, distances might increase, and our horizons expand, but the magic of taking off from a hillside and flying cross country remains the same.
In Cross Country issue 154 Hugh Miller touches down after a 200km flight across the English countryside and puts pen to paper straight away.
He writes:
One of the most amazing things you can possibly ever do is fly. If you’re anything like me, you’ll have thought about flying since before you can remember.
In fact, I think most people have a yearn, an inbuilt desire to taste flight. As kids, we marvelled at how ET floated up on his bike, we wondered about whether our own living room carpet might be a magic flying one – it does look a bit Persian, after all? – and we dreamed of floating out of our beds and flying off over our towns.
As we grew up, most of us forget, a little or a lot – in the extreme, some might peer out at the clouds from their airline seats and wonder a little about what it would be like to float amongst the clouds… before returning to their plastic meal, plastic film or plastic inflight magazine, but sadly, the wonder is mostly lost.
Paragliders make it possible.
Only in Cross Country issue 154, July/August 2014.
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