Last weekedn we finally got around to going paragliding! Unfortunately it was quite cloudy so we didn't get any views of the mountains. We'd wanted to go early because the mountians are usually more visible first thing but they advised the 11am flight because the thermals are better. It meant that we got higher but we didn't see any mountains.

Running off a hillside was a lot less scary than I aniticipated. I didn't do it very well though, apparently I sat down too early so we dropped a little. We were doing tandem flights which means that you have a trained pilot behind you to control the wing. My pilot was called Bradley, he was friendly. The flying was amazing. It was literally like hanging in mid-air. It only got a little scary when I thought about how my life depended on a bit of fabric and some strings and the wing sometimes collapsed a little at the edge which was  a tiny bit frightening. I was also a little worried when at one point we just kept falling and got within a few metres of the trees. Luckily we managed to climb again and didn't hit them!

It wasn't one of the flights that use the birds (apparently they're quite cruel because the birds spend 5 months of the year in cages in the non-flying season) but there were plenty of big birds (I think they were hawks) around which we were basically flying with. The pilots follow them to find the thermals.

Near the end Bradley let me steer for a while. That was fun but I was a bit scared in case something went wrong. The he did some kind of acrobatic thing. We spun round so fast that the force pushed my head right back and I couldn't move it! Our landing was very easy. We didn't even have to run. I just stood when we reached the ground.

Afterwards I felt quite sick. I hadn't felt sick at all for the first 45 minutes of the flight but suddenly (for no apparent reason) I started feeling a little quesy for the last part. It was worse afterwards for about an hour!