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This weekend Heath and I made it down to Oxford to visit Mike, a guy we met at Joeyglide last year. The plan was to do some flying at his club in Bicester, but the lovely English weather put a stop to that. Nevermind. We had a lovely time seeing Oxford instead! We got there late Saturday afternoon after battling the M1 for the 1st time. Have to say, Buster the Polo was a lil outclassed - cars whizzing by us all the way down! Mike took us out in Oxford with a group of his friends that night where we got a brief walking tour of Oxford and a stop at one of the student institutes - an ice cream joint that has a book where you can petition for ice cream flavours. When you get 30 signatures next to your suggestion the owner promises to make it. Mind you, I wouldn't really want to try some of the flavours suggested! The next day was looking pretty ordinary for flying so Heath and I ventured back into Oxford to explore a bit more. We went for a really pretty walk along the river and managed to end up a fair way out of town, so had to find our way back in (my bad), but once we did we stumbled across the place where they hire out boats. We had to try - punting - you can't go to oxford without giving it a go - so we hired a boat for an hour and proceeded to almost fall in while figuring out how to punt! Heath made it look ridiculously easy (until the part where the pole got stuck in the silt at the bottom and he nearly overbalanced - but we won't mention that) but I struggled a bit. We kind of ended up in the branches at the side of the river when I took over! Lots and lots of fun though. That night Mike took us out to one of the local pubs where we had a really nice night. This morning we were going to go for a fly in one of the powered planes just to have a look around, but it was raining when we woke up so we said farewell to Mike and headed back north in search of clearer skies. We headed up to Yorkshire where we meandered through all the market towns - including Thirsk, which is where James Herriot (or whatever his real name is) lived. The area around Thirsk is beautiful, but the actual town was overrun with tourists. From there we went up through the North Yorkshire National Park, and along the way spotted a few gliders ridge soaring. Pretty soon after we came across signs to the York Gliding Club, so we stopped in to check it out. It's an absolutely gorgeous site where they actually launch off the top of a ridge. The gliding clubs over here are nothing like Australia - for one they're all green, but they're also huge and quite professional. Mike's club in Bicester employ him as an instructor throughout the week, and have a huge number of gliders on site. The York gliding club also runs everyday and employs office staff along with instructors. I don't think Australia has anything like it in terms of sheer size. I think Heath will probably join up there to do some flying as they have a discus, plus a couple of really nice twins so he can take me up! They were quite busy as it was a public holiday, so we didn't fly but we'll be back there soon. And now we're back home, planning our next long weekend in Scotland!
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