Well I had my first really bad day of the competition today when I ran out of time to complete the task. In short, I bombed out.
After walking for an hour to find a road during which I got fairly lost I grumpily presented myself for the GPS download, was rude to the Meet Director about the task setting, ate alone under a private black cloud at the taco van and am now sulking in my room and refusing all callers.
I’ll have to apologise to the affable Karel (the meet director) tomorrow for not being very nice even though I’m right as they set a task that didn’t really give enough time for everybody to have a fair attempt at finishing it. If you got stuck, even for ten minutes, then there wasn’t enough day left to be able to get to goal. This seems a shame in a competition where, in general, the organisation and task setting has been spot on. I fear the reality of a fairly average day and limited daylight was forgotten in the pressure to set ever longer and more impressive tasks which look good on the press releases.
Oh, and to all the people who’ll say ‘wah wah wah you should have flown faster then’ I’ve got a couple of words for you. Sod off!
A cup of tea has helped but I fear the only cure for my incredibly bad mood will be time, darkness and sleep.
To make matters worse I’d got fed up with waiting for the retrieve to turn up and so had set off on my own, leaving the other pilots in the field where we’d all landed together. After getting lost several times, attacked by a multitude of different mongrel dogs, trying to take a short cut across a gulley only to find it full of water at the bottom and finally finding the main road the van that stopped to pick me up contained all the same pilots I’d abandoned an hour earlier. The driver had evidently found them and they’d told him about ‘some Pom’ (the other pilots were from the Australian and New Zealand Teams) who’d ‘gone off on walkabout’ and they’d then spent ages driving around looking for a sulky Brit pilot who was, at the time, trying to claw his way back out of a gully whilst fending off a pack of feral mutts.
So here I am. Muddy, stung, mosquito bitten but, I suppose, ready to fight another day.
I bet Kat’s happy that I’m 8000 miles away tonight so she doesn’t have to listen to the moaning.
Mark H
Discussing the task
Keith McCullough shows off his best side
Crowded skies
