Hi, I'm back home with Mum and Dad again.
Thanks to Dad for writing the blog for me.
It was fairly accurate considering I only spoke for about a minute each day and then sometimes via Mum.
The main error is that I didn't walk down from Les Trois Eveches yesterday ( I'm not sure it would be possible, my leg was really sore from all the walking in the morning ).
I simply re-launched and continued my flight to St. Vincent Les Forts. It was a scary launch, from a turbulent, rocky slope with a vertical drop behind it. As I started to launch, a gust suddenly lifted me and I had to control the wing, whilst airborne, before turning round. I am glad to be alive, as I could have easily been dragged over the edge of a 100m cliff. Yesterday's flying, about 4 and a half hours, was by far the most epic flying I have ever done. Flying next to barren cliff faces at over 2500m above sea level. It was lovely being up so high, where the air is cool. Down in the valleys the air is so hot in August, that I can barely survive, so with the hard walking I was doing, I was eating almost nothing and starting to feel poorly.
Yesterday morning I walked 16km of the 21km to St. Andre, before getting a lift. With my 20kg bag ( about 17kg, plus 3 litres of water ), my sore leg was so bad that it will take a few days to recover. Accepting a lift means that I have failed in my mission, and I have got a lot of stuff I want to do at home ( my milling machine is waiting to be played with ), so last night I started hitch-hiking home. The lift I got took me all the way to his home town near Sisteron, left me at a camp-site, and then picked me up this morning and took me to Toulon, where I got the TGV to Nice and then I got the next EasyJet to Bristol, where Dad picked me up and now I'm home.
My mission was a failure, but it was an epic experience and has taught me loads of lessons. If I try again, I need to do some training first, so my legs don't let me down. Also, I need to do my walking early in the morning, maybe when it is still dark, rather than in the afternoon. As it was I was doing a small flight, walking in the heat, and then waiting in the coolness of the morning, until the thermals began. Also, I need to carry less weight. I don't think I really need a tent or a sleeping mat. I was still bitten by horse-flies on my legs during the day, and I could wear socks at night. Also I took some spare clothes. This was unnecessary weight. I was able to wash my clothes in the shower, and it's quite nice to wear wet clothes when you are over-hot. However, it might be quite nice just to have a holiday without any walking and with an air-conditioned hotel, one day.
I have some photos. There are not very good, but I will put them on flickr tomorrow and post a link. Dan.